• Xapo Bank has partnered with Lightspark to integrate the Lightning Network and enable near-instant bitcoin payments for its customers.
• This integration makes Xapo Bank the first fully licensed private bank to offer Lightning payments.
• The network charges a small fee for each transaction, and Xapo Bank has set a fixed payment fee of 15 sats to protect members from executing transactions with high fees.
Xapo Bank Partners With Lightspark
Gibraltar-licensed private bank Xapo Bank has partnered with Lightspark, the startup spearheaded by former Facebook crypto lead David Marcus, to integrate the Lightning Network into its banking platform and enable near-instant bitcoin payments for customers.
First Fully Licensed Private Bank To Offer Lightning Payments
This integration will make Xapo Bank the first fully licensed private bank to offer Lightning payments. The lightning network enables scalable payments across millions of transactions per second, reducing time-consuming and costly experiences often faced by users who pay for small transactions in Bitcoin.
Xapo Offers Low Transaction Fees And Interest Rates
Seamus Rocca, CEO of Xapo Bank, said that they are streamlining the process to allow their members to pay for small purchases with Bitcoin without having to convert to USD first. They also offer an annual interest rate of 4.1% on US dollars and up to 1% on Bitcoin, paid out daily.
Lightning Network Enables Near-Instant Payments
David Marcus commented that they are delighted that Xapo chose their enterprise grade solution to reliably send and receive payments on the lightning network without all the complexity and operational overhead that typically comes with running a node on it. Members can pay via lightning by holding Bitcoin in their app and scanning and paying an invoice at any merchant accepting lightning payments.
Fixed Payment Fee Of 15 Sats To Protect Members From High Fees
The network charges a small fee for each transaction, but Xapo have set a fixed payment fee of 15 sats in order to protect members from executing transactions with unreasonably high fees.