Ripple Labs announced that the company will be collaborating with the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and LuLu International Exchange to process cross-border payments from UAE to Egypt.
NBE has connected with the UAE-based financial service provider LuLu Exchange via RippleNet, a global payments network by Ripple, in order to handle the cross-border transactions.
Egypt has gained $24 billion in remittances in 2020 alone — making Egypt one of the top five remittance recipients in the world after India, China, Mexico and the Philippines.
Egypt ranks amongst the top five countries worldwide in terms of remittances received from its overseas expatriate communities. Given the important role remittances play in the Egyptian economy, the National Bank of Egypt is continuously aiming to develop and enhance the infrastructure which pertains to this line of business.
Hesham Elsafty, Group Head for Financial Institutions and International Financial Services at NBE
The funds gained from the remittances are important to the receiving country’s gross domestic product. The money that are sent back to the family and friends are used to pay for necessities like education, food, home purchasing or business startup.
Despite the importance of remittance as stated above, cross-border remittances are costly and slow. It is for this reason that NBE and LuLu decided to form a partnership in order to offer a cheaper, quicker and more reliable way to transfer money into Egypt.
“The ability to send and receive money quickly, reliably and inexpensively today plays a larger role than ever before,” said Navin Gupta, Managing Director of South Asia and MENA.
RippleNet makes use of the blockchain technology to support partners across a global network in accelerating their business performance and scale.
