A startup called SendFriend is using Ripple's technology in order to reduce remittance fees by as much as 80 percent. This news was shared in a blog dated December 12. SendFriend is a blockchain money transfer firm.

The SendFriend service makes use of Ripple's xRapid product for payments that have to cross an international border. It is able to convert a payment between the United States dollar and pesos from the Philippines. It does this while going around the long process of payments between traditional banks.

The SendFriend money transfer service is an app that aims to lower annual remittance fees for an international payment. Filipino workers may enjoy a transaction cost that is 75 percent lower than what they are used to paying. What makes this possible is RippleNet's On-demand Liquidity, or ODL, technology. This news was shared by SendFriend's CEO, David Lighton.

With the ODL setup, a user on RippleNet can make use of a digital token called XRP. The XRP token can bridge the two currencies in only three seconds. According to Lighton, this allows a sourcing of liquidity on demand. It depresses the transaction fees by as much as 75 percent. He added that SendFriend also lowered charges by another 2 percent by making some enhancements to its general network and services.

The SendFriend app joined RippleNet's payment network in January 2019. This happened at the same time as some other industry services. Those included Euro Exim Bank, FTCS, JNFX and TransPayGo. In February of this year, SendFriend received about $1.7 million in investments from Ripple. The Mastercard Foundation, Barclays and the MIT Media Lab also added some funding to the project.

Around the end of July, Chile's peer-to-peer remittance firm called CurrencyBird also became part of the RippleNet network. This partnership allowed CurrencyBird to add some new routes to its existing 50 destinations. It also allowed new currencies to be added to the transaction options. The result was lower fees and faster speeds for transferring funds. Also in July, the Philippines UnionBank set up a new payment service that is paired to the Philippine peso.