As reported by Morningstar, Visa Inc. acquired the company Ripple Earthport PLC. The relevant documents were signed yesterday morning; the total amount of the transaction was £198 million.
Earthport Chairman Sunil Sabharwal (Sunil Sabharwal) said:
"The Earthport Board believes this offer is a great opportunity for our shareholders to see the instantly growing and visible value of Earthport. Visa has the same vision for the future growth and development of Earthport as we do, so we believe that our employees, partners, customers and shareholders have acquired a worthy partner."
In turn, Twitter users began to actively discuss the possible cooperation between Ripple and Visa. One of Ripple's shareholders under the nickname Darth@Ripple wrote:
"This is news on a large scale. It all fits together. Ripple has partnered with Earthport. Visa bought Earthport. In theory, this means that Visa becomes Ripple's default partner."
Another user, Great Gasby, focused on the shortcomings of the payment system, which could eliminate the integration with RippleNet:
"What #Visa acquired Earthport is big news. As said before, we have no problem with instant payments [ ... ], the problem is in settling and tracking money. Now these problems are solved for Visa. #XRP".
However, some users still doubt that Visa will take over the cooperation with Ripple. Party thread under the name HillDWXRP left the following review:
"That doesn't mean they're partners now; the partnership with Ripple has concluded Earthport, and Visa can easily terminate the agreement, and since Ripple is a competitor to Visa, I think it will be terminated pretty soon."
Earthport was forced to sell its business after a failed fiscal year: the company experienced several management crises, and its turnover decreased significantly. Shortly after the news of the deal with Visa, Earthport shares increased.
The possibility of working together Visa and Ripple can not be excluded completely. In October, the CEO of the Corporation Alfred Kelly (Alfred Kelly) said that over time Visa can enter the cryptocurrency market.