Blockchain platform Stellar announces partnership with Coins.ph, Flutterwave, ICICI Bank and Tempo

Stellar has announced that it has partnered with four financial institutions, enabling their customers to send and receive low-cost and instant money transfers.

Stellar revealed four new partners in some of the largest remittance markets in the world. Indian bank ICICI; Philippines-based financial inclusion-focused fintech startup Coins.ph; pan-African Fintech firm Flutterwave which is notably plugged into the popular M-Pesa network; and French remittance provider Tempo Money Transfer, a licensed money transfer operator in Europe, have all joined the Stellar blockchain platform.

ICICI Bank​ is launching a pilot programme on Stellar for cross-border payments without traditional wire fees. ICICI is also launching a mobile wallet application with a Stellar backend for its university and office campuses, which they will potentially roll out to their entire customer base.

Coins.ph​ will enable users to send global remittances to anyone in the Philippines using a Stellar wallet or from any institution connected to the Stellar network. For example, all the financial institutions on the Stellar network will be able to send money to the Philippines through Coins.ph, to India through ICICI and from Europe through Tempo.

Flutterwave will use Stellar to support cross-border payments to M-Pesa, a mobile platform for money transfer and financial services. For the 21 million M-Pesa users who are limited to transacting in Kenya, this move will expand their ability to send payments regardless of whether they are based in Kenya, Ghana or Nigeria.

Stellar is a non-for-profit network and operates on the belief that the world’s financial infrastructure is so important that it should function more like a public utility, such as the Internet. In addition, they also believe that it shouldn’t be owned by one for-profit entity and should bring financial services to all, including the underbanked.