The international American financial services provider American Express and the bank Santander UK start a cooperation with the payment network Ripple. The aim is to accelerate cross-border payments between the United States and the United Kingdom using the Blockchain.
As the Ripple team announced yesterday , American Express joins RippleNet, the blockchain network Ripples, to enable real-time B2B payment transactions, providing customers with a better service. To do so, American Express will work with UK-based Santander UK to build a direct channel between the US and the UK. Payments made on American Express's FX International Payments Platform (FXIP) will be made through RippleNet in the future.
The United States is the largest trading partner of the United Kingdom, which makes the smoothest possible circulation of payments between these two countries of great mutual interest. By using RippleNet, FXIP customers are now to feel an immediate improvement in global credit transfers. Ripples Blockchain Network simplifies the use of intermediaries and creates transparency for the status and cost of the entire transaction.
"The cooperation with Ripple and Santander marks the next step in our blockchain journey and evolves the way we move money around the world",
said Marc Gordon, CIO and executive vice president at American Express.
"This blockchain solution opens a new channel between the US and the UK, providing us with a great opportunity for global payments,"
Santander's CEO for Global Transaction Banking, Jose Luis Calderon.
Both American Express and Santander are also in favor of opening the network to other participants in a timely manner and of continuing the USA-UK corridor into other economic areas.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also commented on the cooperation:
"Together with American Express and Santander, we are making a big step towards tackling the problems of international payments. Transactions that used to take days will now be real-time. This is only the beginning. We sincerely hope to extend this partnership to help even more American Express FXIP customers. "
The ripple own cryptocurrency XRP plays in the considerations of the co-operation likewise a role, however, is to be integrated later only into the system. Rather, the technology is designed to do without crypto currencies or other tokens. As a result, the RippleNet also be used for banks that want to do their business in Fiat currency only. This option could provide potential crypto-skeptics with the benefits of Blockchain.
