By joining RippleNet – the global payments network that leverages blockchain technology to quickly and inexpensively facilitate transactions – cross-border money transfer specialist Xendpay will bring its fee-agnostic remittance service to customers in countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

This includes access to its Pay What You Want feature that enables customers to pay no fees on transfers totaling $2,500 over the course of a calendar year. For businesses, the option is twice as valuable with a $5,000 fee-free limit.

“Most of our customers are migrants who are sending money back home,” Xendpay Head of Product Innovation Bhavin Vaghela said. “This money is vital to support their families: to pay rent or mortgage, electricity bills, medical fees, and education costs.” He added that, as an online service, Xendpay is able to save on overhead and pass that savings on to the customer.

“I think of our fees as similar to providing a tip,” Vaghela said. “If you feel like you’ve been treated well, received a good rate and enjoyed the experience, you might pay the recommended rate. We’ve even had clients pay us more.”

In joining RippleNet, Xendpay and its customers will benefit from a significant increase in processing speed for international money transfers, according to Vaghela. He noted that a transfer in a currency like the Thai Baht that might have taken up to four days to complete, now takes less than an hour courtesy of RippleNet’s technology and network of partners. Not only does the partnership with RippleNet accelerate the money transfers Xendpay has always offered, but also the collaboration enables Xendpay to provide money transfers it previously felt it could not.

“We were unable to offer currencies like Malaysian Ringgit or Bangladeshi Taka before,” Vaghela said. “Now that it’s easier to connect with local partners, we can provide our clients with more local currencies and, therefore, see new growth in those corridors.”

Xendpay demonstrated its cash-to-cash mobile international payment service at FinovateEurope 2013. Founded in 2012 by Paresh Davdra and Rajesh Agrawal, CEO, and headquartered in London, U.K., the company offers its services in 200+ countries, and transfers funds in more than 50 currencies and 2,900+ currency pairs. Xendpay is agent of foreign currency exchange payments firm RationalFX, founded in 2005 by Davdra and Agrawal.

The new mayor of London isn’t just pro-business. He’s pro-fintech, as well.

To help his city manage the financial ramifications of the vote this week for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, London’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, has appointed Xendpay founder and CEO Rajesh Agrawal as deputy mayor.

“I know that Rajesh is the best person for the job of protecting jobs and growth in London as we deal with the fallout of the referendum,” Khan said. The mayor credited Agrawal’s experience in creating “multi-million pound businesses from scratch” as giving the fintech entrepreneur insight into the challenges businesses face in the United Kingdom.

Xendpay founder and CEO Rajesh Agrawal demonstrated his online money-transfer technology at FinovateEurope 2013 in London.

Agrawal, who in 2012 founded international money-transfer specialist Xendpay and served as Khan’s business adviser during the mayoral campaign, added that the sense of welcome he experienced as an immigrant to the UK must be maintained even as the country’s relationship with Europe changes. “(I) found a city that welcomed me with open arms and didn’t make me feel like a stranger,” Agrawal said. “This openness to talent and enterprise must not change as a result of the referendum.”

Xendpay’s online money-transfer service allows people to send money either to bank accounts, or to the company’s partnering network of cash-collection points. Geared toward international travelers of all kinds—from tourists to students to migrant workers, and available in English, Spanish, German, French, and Polish—Xendpay offers both cash-to-cash as well as more traditional card-to-bank transfers. All payments are covered by the FSA authorization of RationalFX, the foreign-exchange services firm Agrawal founded in 2005.

Agrawal demonstrated the Xendpay platform at FinovateEurope 2013. Earlier this year, the company announced that its money-transfer service was available in Tanzania and Burkina Faso.

Via strategic partnerships with mobile network operators M-Pesa-Vodafone of Tanzania and Air Tel Money of Burkina Faso, online money-transfer specialist Xendpay is expanding its services in Africa to the east and west at the same time.

The goal, according to Xendpay CEO Rajesh Agrawal, is to make transferring money into and out of Africa “easier, more transparent, and cost-effective.” Talking about money remittance and its impact on developing economies, Agrawal suggested that services like Xendpay can help drive economic growth, and promote political stability in emerging nations. “[Remittance] is a key tool for international development,” he said.

Additionally Xendpay will add Nigeria’s currency to its new currencies portfolio. The company currently serves more than 170 different countries and more than 45 different currencies.

Xendpay CEO Rajesh Agrawal demonstrated his company’s online money transfer service at FinvoateEurope 2013.

Xendpay’s “pay what you want” approach makes the company unique among the growing field of international remittance companies. Xendpay recommends an amount for customers to pay for each money transfer to help cover costs. But the company stands behind its “no compulsory fees” business model, its emphasis on cash-to-cash transfers, and its commitment to spanning not just geography, but the generational distance between Xendpay customers, as well.

“Often there is a gap between [sender and receiver], and that gap is not just geographical, but generational, economical,” Agrawal explained during his company’s appearance at FinovateEurope: “Somebody like myself sending money back to my parents: I cannot use a company like PayPal, like eWallet. My father doesn’t even know how to operate a computer,” he said.

“We designed Xendpay to be so simple that our first-ever customer was a 76-year-old English lady living in France who was using Xendpay to transfer money from her U.K. bank account to her French account,” Agrawal added.

Xendpay accounts are free to open, and offer competitive exchange rates, online checks, and the ability to pay by bank transfer, credit or debit card, as well as Sofort. Transfers involving euros, pounds, and American dollars are typically sent the same day as funds received. For other countries such as Vietnam, Mexico, and Egypt, two-to-three working days is standard.

Xendpay was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in London. A member of the Rational Group of companies and a sister company to RationalFX, Xendpay demonstrated its money-transfer technology at FinovateEurope 2013.