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With Ripple, CROSS ENF Expands Quickly in Newly Opened Korean Remittance Market

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CROSS ENF is a blockchain-based financial services company in South Korea leveraging Ripple’s global network, real-time transfer capabilities and transparent transaction features to achieve hypergrowth in the newly opened Korean remittance market.

Korea has a large bilateral remittance flow relative to its population. According to the World Bank, the country ranks 11th in international remittances at roughly $33 billion total but 28th overall in population size.

For many years, that remittance market was controlled entirely by large financial institutions. But rule changes introduced in 2017 allowed non-bank companies to begin offering consumer remittance services.

CROSS ENF pounced on the opportunity and partnered with RippleNet for its retail remittance product Cross in late 2018 through SBI Ripple Asia, a joint venture between Ripple and SBI Holdings. CROSS ENF told Swell attendees that since that time, the company’s volume has grown an average of 50% each month while boasting an 80% customer retention rate.

She attributes much of this success to key Ripple features. The first is RippleNet’s global network of other blockchain-based remittance players that CROSS ENF can leverage on behalf of its customers. This extensive coverage allows CROSS ENF to quickly add new corridors as customer demand merits.

And in a country like Korea that already has real-time settlement for domestic payments, those customers demand speed in their international transfers as well. Ripple’s instant payment capability delivers on those expectations, enabling faster money transfers than with traditional cross border remittances.

Ripple’s visibility into transaction status and two-way communication features have also figured prominently in CROSS ENF’s marketing efforts and product design. The company allows customers to receive live status updates on transfer progress and boasts of this capability in its advertising and marketing materials.

Jeong is enthusiastic about the company’s projections for sustained growth in 2020. She attributes much of its ability to quickly step into a new market and establish this accelerated trajectory to Ripple.

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