According to an apparent release from September 6, SBI Remit Co., which handles remittance services for Japan’s SBI Group, is set to begin “providing international remittance services using the crypto asset XRP to bank accounts” as soon as this month.

“By using XRP as a bridge currency, you can transfer money quickly and at low cost. Furthermore, it has excellent scalability, allowing users to easily send money to Ripple's partners around the world, and we believe this will lead to stronger competitiveness in the international remittance business”, reads the translated announcement.

To begin with, the aforementioned services will only be available to those with bank accounts in “the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia”. 

Though the above geographies are the first to be offered this particular service, the translated release adds that “SBI Remit will continue to work hard to increase the number of countries where remittances are possible and expand services with a view to corporate transactions and inbound transactions through partnerships with Ripple and other fintech companies”.

At time of writing, XRP’s price does not appear to have been tangibly affected by the announcement, and is currently trading at around the $0.50 mark, according to data from CoinMarketCap.