One of the world’s leading commercial banks and also one of the most significant partners of Ripple, the XRP (XRP) operator, now teamed up with SWIFT for using the Global Payments Innovation across Spain, the UK, Poland, and Argentina for fast cross-border payments.

“With SWIFT Global Payments Innovation, Santander can now offer a rapid cross-border payments service, with real-time payments tracking and transparency on bank fees and foreign exchange rates,” the official announcement of the new deal said.

According to the press release, Santander is now struggling to go live with SWIFT’s Global Payments Innovation in Chile and Mexico, and the bank hopes to achieve that by the end of 2018. Also, Santander announced that 80% of its cross-border payments would be conducted via SWIFT Global Payments Innovation by the beginning of 2019. Furthermore, in 2019, Santander and SWIFT plan to extend to other countries, too.

Santander and SWIFT are working on the GPI project since 2017 with the main focus on the bank’s customers.

What would the Santander and SWIFT partnership for Global Payments Innovation mean for Ripple and its XRP (XRP)?

The new deal between Santander and SWIFT was welcomed by many of the bank’s branches across the countries where the two companies plan to go live with the Global Payments Innovation.

“For us, SWIFT GPI represents a good opportunity to improve the experience provided to our clients in their international payments, making the process faster and more transparent while simultaneously making our internal processes more efficient. We are looking forward to advancing in the following phases in order to achieve the best possible service in our payments offering,” said Eva Bueno Velayos from Santander Spain.

However, the new deal is not affecting Ripple and its XRP (XRP). In reality, a partnership between Ripple and SWIFT wouldn’t be surprising, to be honest, since the two might join forces to create a more reliable cross-border payments system. We’ll learn more about that after SWIFT’s upcoming conference, Sibos, where Ripple will attend.

Also, Ripple and Santander launched the Ripple-powered OnePayFX app for facilitating cross-border payments.