Thailand’s Largest Commercial Bank Retracts Tweet Indicating Plans to Use Ripple’s XRP

Published at: June 7, 2019

Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), Thailand’s largest commercial bank, has denied it plans to start using Ripple’s XRP token, contrary to earlier indications. The bank’s denial was communicated in a tweet published on June 7.

The bank’s denial was prompted by an earlier post on social media dated June 5, when the bank’s official Twitter handle had responded to a user’s question regarding XRP and revealed ostensible plans to announce details of an unspecified “XRP system [...] soon.”

With the June 5 tweet having since been deleted, SCB today has firmly stated that:

“We are so sorry for the previous information of the previous post. As of now we have no plan on using XRP.”

 

SCB’s initial tweet from June 5, indicating apparent plans to begin using XRP. Source: now-deleted tweet, accessed June 7 via Google web cache

Notwithstanding SCB’s conflicting signals this week, the bank has in fact undertaken several blockchain-related initiatives to date. In April, SCB and Thai state oil company PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited performed a successful test of blockchain’s use for cross-border business-to-business payments.

While SCB’s official announcement at the time of the pilot did not specify the use of Ripple technology, the bank is reported to be a part of the RippleNet payment network.

In September 2018, SCB had pioneered RippleNet’s multi-hop feature, which allows for the settlement of payments on behalf of other financial institutions present on the network.

Tags
Adoption
Blockchain
Ripple
Thailand
Banks
Related Posts
Egyptian National Bank Turns to Blockchain to Boost Remittance Business
Another major financial institution has partnered with blockchain-based payments firm Ripple. The National Bank of Egypt has signed a cooperation agreement with Ripple to establish new channels for inward remittances, according to a Feb. 11 report from local daily news site Youm7. The agreement reportedly makes the National Bank the country’s first to venture into the blockchain sector. Remittances: an almost $600 billion global market The global remittance market — referring to the money or goods that migrants send back to family and friends in their home countries — is expected to reach $597 billion in 2020, according to data …
Adoption / Feb. 12, 2020
Ripple Integration Brings Instant Payments to Thailand
Digital money transfer service, Azimo, has partnered with Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), the oldest bank in Thailand, to launch an instant cross-border payments service from Europe to Thailand through Ripple’s global payments network, RippleNet. According to an announcement on April 9, the solution aims to solve the challenges of expensive and unreliable global payments. They state that through their platform, remittances from Europe to Thailand will take less than a minute to complete. Instant cross-border payments via RippleNet Historically, remittances between Europe and Thailand often take more than one whole business day to settle. Azimo on the other hand can …
Adoption / April 10, 2020
Ripple CEO: Even the Banking Goliaths Will Have to Embrace Crypto, Blockchain Innovation
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has argued that the biggest banks have a strong reason to embrace crypto and blockchain innovation, despite the apparent threat it poses to their current oligopoly. The CEO made his remarks during an interview on the Recode Decode podcast with Kara Swisher on May 20. Throughout the interview, Garlinghouse underscored that Ripple’s approach is to work with financial institutions and regulators — with and not against the system. He contended that the idea of anonymous transactions that circumvent government and other authorities will not prevail, given global regulatory concerns about money laundering and terrorism financing. Instead, …
Adoption / May 20, 2019
Bank of Thailand’s CBDC Project Prototype Is Being Finalized by R3 and Wipro
Blockchain consortium R3 and global IT leader Wipro Limited have developed a blockchain solution prototype to enable digital currency for interbank settlements in Thailand, according to a press release from May 7. The release states that the solution will be used by the country’s central bank, the Bank of Thailand (BoT), and eight local commercial banks to enable decentralized interbank real-time gross settlement using a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC). As a part of the first phase of the project, dubbed Inthanon, the solution is based on R3’s open source blockchain platform Corda, and intends to expand the technological …
Adoption / May 7, 2019
Thailand’s Largest Commercial Bank and State Oil Company Trial Blockchain Payments
Thailand’s largest commercial bank, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), and state oil company PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP) performed a successful test of blockchain use for cross-border business-to-business payments. The bank recently announced the successful pilot on its website. Per the announcement, the project, which has been ongoing since mid-2018, aims to optimize operational efficiency. The bank claims that earlier this year, it has successfully carried out payments on blockchain within one minute. The post also points out that conventional methods require a wait of one to two days for the settlement to be carried out. SCB SEVP …
Blockchain / April 24, 2019