The objective: Faster and cheaper international remittances.

Shinhan Bank, one of South Korea’s oldest and largest national banks, and a part of the Shinhan Financial Group (KRX: 055550), has integrated Wise Platform from the U.K.-based fintech Wise. Shinhan becomes the first South Korean bank to offer international money transfers without any exchange rate markups. (Wise)

Shinhan Bank’s integration also makes it the oldest and largest bank yet in Asia to partner with Wise.

Shinhan Bank and Wise

Seoul-headquartered Shinhan Bank has 11 million customers. They can now send money from USD to 27 countries across different parts of the world including Canada, the US, the UK and Australia. Furthermore, they can do so without leaving their bank and from within its app, and at prices that are much cheaper than other South Korean Banks.

Ji Yong Kim, Deputy General Manager International Trade Business Dept., Shinhan Bank said: “At Shinhan Bank we want to make banking a convenient and pleasant experience. We’re delighted to be partnering with Wise to bring that to life, and make cheaper, faster international payments available seamlessly for Shinhan Bank customers. Partnerships like this help us turn the traditional model on its head and enable a new, better way for people to manage their money internationally.”

Global infrastructure

Wise Platform enables banks, financial institutions and companies like Xero, GooglePay and GoCardless to tap into the Wise infrastructure and offer cheaper, faster payments to their own customers. Globally, the platform is live with banks in 10 countries across 4 continents. It also comes pre-integrated in core banking platforms like Temenos, Mambu and Thought Machine.

Wise in India

Earlier this week, Wise rolled out its foreign remittance services for Indians, offering them transactions that are much faster and cost significantly less compared to legacy banks.

Indian citizens can now send money to 44 countries globally, including the UK, US, Singapore, Malaysia, UAE, and other countries in the Eurozone.

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