Six more in the mix for Ripple’s payments network
The year of living favourably…
Standard Chartered, National Australia Bank, Mizuho Financial Group, BMO Financial Group, Siam Commercial Bank and Shanghai Huarui Bank are the latest banks to join Ripple’s blockchain-powered network for cross-border payments.
“2016 has proven to be the year where the most forward-thinking financial institutions are actually using blockchain technologies for payments and settlement rather than as an experiment,” says Ripple CEO and co-founder Chris Larsen.
Ripple says its distributed financial technology can reduce the time and cost of settlement while enabling new types of high-volume, low-value global transactions for their customers. As an example, it cites its work with Shanghai Huarui Bank on a new commercial cross-border payment service for its “growing retail customer base so they can send money internationally in real-time and at a much lower cost”.
This latest news follows SBI Ripple Asia’s announcement last month of the creation of a Japanese consortium of 15 banks in a new network that will use Ripple’s technology for payments and settlement. SBI Ripple Asia projects that the 15 inaugural members will increase the size of the consortium to 30 banks and that the new service will go live in spring of 2017.
Earlier this year, Canada’s ATB Financial sent €666.67 to ReiseBank in Germany using Ripple technology, with the transaction completing in eight seconds. The participants say this was the world’s first bank transfer using blockchain.
Existing Ripple customers include Santander, UniCredit, UBS, Royal Bank of Canada, Westpac Banking Corporation, CIBC, National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Fidor Bank, among others. Ripple says its global network includes 15 of the top 50 global banks, ten banks in commercial deal phases, and over 30 bank pilots completed.
