The Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), in partnership with SCB 10X, is pleased to announce its collaboration with Lightnet to enhance cross-border payments and remittances by using stablecoin for settlement on the public blockchain network.
This groundbreaking project marks Thailand’s first use case of stablecoin for cross-border payments and remittances. As a result, this sets a new standard for the financial services industry. With the integration of Fireblocks’ custody technology, the assets are secured at the back end. This consequently ensures top-tier protection and trust between the parties.
Numerous Benefits in Cross-Border Payments and Remittances with Stablecoin
This project has successfully graduated from the Bank of Thailand’s (BOT) regulatory sandbox in October 2024. The project is now fully commercialised. Thus, it offers a transformative solution for cross-border transactions and marks a significant milestone in Thailand’s financial innovation.
This innovative solution provides numerous benefits. In particular, this includes better capital efficiency by enhancing management of funds. It achieves this through the elimination of pre-funding between partners and reduced operational costs. Moreover, users can use local currencies for making transactions and experience improved reliability and availability. The service is accessible 24/7. Furthermore, the project leverages blockchain technology to create a truly global network for remittances.
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Collaboration is Latest in SCB’s Pioneering FinTech solutions
“The collaboration between SCB and Lightnet underscores a commitment to pioneering financial innovation and improving the remittance experience for users. By integrating blockchain technology, the project promises a more efficient, reliable, and accessible solution for cross-border payments and remittances,” says Thanawatn Kittisuwan, First Executive Vice President & Head of Digital Juristic & Payment of SCB.
Kittisuwan continues, “By leveraging blockchain technology and stablecoins, we are making cross-border payments and remittances more efficient, reliable, and accessible for everyone. SCB has a long-standing tradition of embracing innovative technologies to enhance our financial services.”
This latest collaboration with Lightnet and Fireblocks builds upon SCB’s history of pioneering fintech solutions. SCB’s consistent commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology demonstrates their dedication to providing efficient, accessible financial services to its customers.
SCB 10X Underscores Importance of Cross-Border Payments and Remittances
Mukaya (Tai) Panich, CIO & CEO of SCB 10X adds, “At SCB 10X, our mission is to drive the adoption of financial technology innovation at SCB, SCBX Group and in the broader financial services industry. By harnessing blockchain technology, we are significantly enhancing the speed, efficiency, and accessibility of cross-border payments and remittances.”
According to Panich, this project showcases the real-world impact of fintech innovation. Consequently, this brings substantial improvements to both the bank’s operations and its customers’ experiences. SCB 10X is proud to be playing a pivotal role in moving this initiative forward. It is coordinating efforts across teams to bring this transformative solution to life. Evidently, SCB 10X is thrilled about its potential to improve the efficiency of cross-border payments and remittances.
Also Read: Co-founders inject US$48M into Lightnet to grow its blockchain-powered global remittance solutions
Lightnet Commits to Improving Inclusion and Access
For his part, Tridbodi Arunanondchai, Vice Chairman and Group CEO of Lightnet, emphasises, “Lightnet is dedicated to developing the next generation universal financial network in order to solve various financial pain points for the customers. Our commitment is to provide individuals and businesses with financial access, financial mobility and efficiency. We believe that the launch of this revolutionary cross-border payments and remittance solution is the first step towards this goal.”
According to Arunanondchai, the solution will provide significant improvements to customers’ experience in cross-border payments and remittances. Thus, it will lower transaction time and cost and be accessible on the 24/7 basis. The project also promotes financial inclusion as there is a lower capital requirement per transaction. Beyond this, the project also provides unique value propositions to retail, corporate, and institutional clients, and will help strengthen Thailand’s position as the ASEAN financial hub.
Fireblocks Secure Custody Technology Underpins Cross-Border Payments and Remittances Project
Michael Shaulov, CEO and Co-founder of Fireblocks, agrees, “We’re excited to be part of this groundbreaking cross-border payments initiative with SCB and Lightnet. This project demonstrates the transformative power of blockchain technology in revolutionising traditional banking services. Further, it showcases how financial institutions can leverage cutting-edge technology and a robust digital asset infrastructure to innovate and improve their services.
Shaulov adds that by providing their secure custody technology, Fireblocks is helping to ensure that cross-border payments are not only faster and more efficient, but also meet the highest standards of security. They believe this project sets a new benchmark for the integration of stablecoins into mainstream banking services and look forward to seeing its impact on the way money moves across borders.
Building on this success, SCB and Lightnet are planning to extend this cross-border payments use case to corporate customers. This will facilitate both inward and outward remittances. Significantly, this expansion aims to provide businesses with the same benefits enjoyed by retail customers, further revolutionising cross-border payments.
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This article is sponsored by The Siam Commercial Bank (SCB)
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Featured Image Credit: SCB
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About SCB
The Siam Commercial Bank PCL is the first Thai bank. The bank is one of Thailand’s leading universal banks. It provides a full range of financial services through its nationwide branch network to customers in all segments. In particular this includes wholesalers, SMEs, and retail banking services. SCB aims to become Thailand’s “Most Admired Bank” with “Digital Bank with Human Touch” strategy and “the number one in universal digital bank in wealth management. Thus, it offers seamless experiences across all channels to customers” mission by balancing value propositions for all stakeholders – customers, employees, shareholders, regulators, and society – and becoming a leader in shaping the future of Thailand’s banking industry. For more information, please visit https://www.scb.co.th/.
About SCB 10X
SCB 10X Co., Ltd. is a disruptive technology investment arm of SCBX Group. It was established in January 2020 with a “moonshot mission” to achieve exponential growth through technology innovation and investment in disruptive technologies. This includes Digital Asset, Blockchain, Web3, as well as AI & Deep Tech. For more information, please visit https://scb10x.com/.
About Lightnet
Lightnet is a fintech company building the next generation financial technology that targets areas of financial accessibility, financial mobility and cross-border money transfer. The company has regional hubs in Singapore, Lithuania and Dubai with operations across Asia and Europe. Co-founded by Mr. Chatchaval Jiaravanon and Mr. Tridbodi Arunanondchai. Lightnet offers cutting-edge multi-asset global payment solutions with real-time settlement capabilities powered by AI and blockchain technology. For more information, please visit https://lightnet.io/.
About Fireblocks
Fireblocks is an easy-to-use platform to create new blockchain-based products and manage day-to-day digital asset operations. Exchanges, banks, PSPs, lending desks, custodians, trading desks, and hedge funds can securely scale their digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves thousands of organisations in the financial, payments, and web3 space. It has secured the transfer of over $6 trillion in digital assets. Further, it has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. Find out why CISOs and Ops Teams love Fireblocks at www.fireblocks.com.
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