Placing Bhutan on the global banking map, ORO Bank has partnered with Nium, a Singapore-based real-time cross-border payment company. This strategic collaboration enables fast, cost-effective and traceable money transfers across more than 190 countries. ORO Bank, the official bank of Gelephu Mindfulness City is Asia’s first full-reserve digital bank, based in Bhutan.
Through the collaboration, ORO Bank enables customers to lock in favourable exchange rates for 24 hours, ensuring control over transactions. It offers easy transfers to bank accounts, cards, and digital wallets, all while implementing strong security measures to protect every transaction.
Daniel Santos, the Head of Operations, Sales and Business Development of ORO Bank said, “We can send to 190 countries in 25 currencies with fees as low as 1 US dollar. We can do local currency transfers in 50 key destinations. And we do instant payouts in six top destinations: INR in India, Philippine pesos in the Philippines, Singapore dollars in Singapore, euros across Europe, sterlings in the UK and Brazilian real in Brazil.”
Besides, the bank is planning more such partnerships along with other initiatives.
He added that “We will be announcing some very exciting new partnerships and launching some very exciting new products to our customers in the coming months. These products will include yield bearing products, as in products that pay our customers a monthly interest in US dollars, straight to the account in a very transparent manner. And we will also be launching cards, Visa and Master Card in the future. And very excitingly, we will be building an AI bank.”
He added that the AI bank will allow customers to log in ORO Bank and interact with an AI agent. This agent will guide them by offering research insights and educational information about which products best fit their risk profiles. This will enable customers to invest their capital in the appropriate products.
While ORO Bank is currently not available to residents in Bhutan, the partnership opens up job opportunities for Bhutanese to engage and contribute to the international digital banking sector.
Singye Dema
Edited by Kipchu
