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Thailand: KBank app handling transfers in 12 currencies
Kasikornbank is doubling the number of foreign-denominated currencies to 12 in KBank’s international money transfer service via mobile banking app K Plus, covering 30 countries.
The country’s biggest mobile banking app by users will be able to send money to countries across the world by year-end, said senior executive vice-president Silawat Santivisat.
The 12 currencies include the US dollar, the Singaporean dollar, the Australian dollar, the Hong Kong dollar, the euro, the British pound, the Philippine peso, the Indonesian rupiah, the Vietnamese dong, the South Korean won and the Malaysian ringgit.
The bank’s outward remittance service through K Plus earlier was able to transfer to recipients in 24 countries.
The higher number of currencies is due to an application programming interface jointly developed by the bank and Nium, a Singapore-based remittance fintech in which Beacon VC has invested.
Beacon VC is a corporate venture capital fund wholly owned by KBank.
Since the bank’s outward remittance service launched in May 2019, it has received a warm response from new users, Mr Silawat said.
Some 4 billion baht was remitted abroad after the service was unveiled. Most of the transferred money was for education, payments, immigrant workers’ remittances and remittances to family members living overseas.
KBank handled 25% of the country’s low-value remittance total in 2019. The bank aims for 60,000 outward remittance transactions with a combined value of 10 billion baht a year by 2025.
Senders can make transactions any time, anywhere without visiting a branch. There is no need to present documents when using the service.
Until June 30, 2020, KBank will charge a special fee of 250 baht per transaction, down from the regular rate of 450 baht.
KBANK shares closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 87 baht, up 4.75 baht, in trade worth 2.28 billion baht.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1921084/kbank-app-handling-transfers-in-12-currencies