Ripple has added three cryptocurrency exchanges to its
cross-border payments settlement product, according to a press
release published August 16.
Ripple has partnered with U.S.-based Bittrex, Mexican Bitso, and Philippine Coins.Ph cryptocurrency trading platforms within its
initiative to build a “healthy” ecosystem of digital asset
exchange.
The new partners will enable Ripple’s xRapid payments
solution to move between XRP and U.S. dollars, Mexican pesos, and Philippine pesos
respectively. Ripple explained the operational principle like
this:
“A financial institution (FI) that has an account with
Bittrex would initiate a payment in U.S. dollars via xRapid, which
instantly converts into XRP on Bittrex. The payment amount in XRP
is settled over the XRP Ledger, then Bitso, through its Mexican
peso liquidity pool, instantly converts the XRP into fiat, which is
then settled into the destination bank account.”
XRapid is a liquidity solution for Ripple’s blockchain-based real-time gross settlement system,
which is developed to facilitate international fiat transfers
between financial institutions. Ripple Chief Market Strategist Cory
Johnson said:
“We’ve seen several successful xRapid pilots already,
and as we move the product from beta to production later this year,
these exchange partners will allow us to provide financial
institutions with the comfort and assurance that their payments
will move seamlessly between different currencies.”
In May, financial institutions who participated in the
pilot of xRapid platform, which tested payments between the U.S.
and Mexico, reported transaction savings of
40-70 percent. Additionally, the participants noted an improvement
in transaction speed from 2-3 days to “just over two minutes.”
Although the testing showed solid product performance,
Ripple chief cryptographer David Schwartz claimed that banks are unlikely
to deploy blockchain to process international
payments, citing low scalability and privacy problems.
Earlier this week, Cointelegraph reported that Ripple is
considering breaking into the Chinese market to speed up
international payments with blockchain technology. Jeremy Light,
vice president of European Union strategic accounts at Ripple, said
that “China is definitely a country and region of
interest.”