Both these companies are eager to use Ripple’s xRapid payments solution that is designed to provide on-demand liquidity.
The last month of December 2017 played a very crucial role in Ripple’s rise to fame. As the news arrived, about different banking institutions in Japan and South Korea testing the Ripple technology, there was a massive inrush of investors buying the XRP tokens. The price of Ripple was seen growing exponentially by the year-end hitting an all-time high of $3.81 and touching almost $150 billion in marketcap even surpassing Ethereum at one point.
The company while appreciating Ripple’s performance, said: “XRP markets ended the year with a statement — one that will likely be remembered as a defining milestone in XRP’s history.”
There has been a lot of good news coming the way of Ripple. In addition to banking institutions, other payment gateways and services are now testing the Ripple technology for instant money transfer and payments using the XRP tokens. Recently, the Dallas-based giant for money transfer – MoneyGram – announced about testing Ripple’s xRapid payments solution designed to provide on-demand liquidity to financial institutions.
Getting yet another upgrade to the acceptance of its xRapid solution, Ripple joined hands with two new payments partners – MercuryFX and IDT Corporation who will be using the Ripple’s payment solution to settle all corporate transactions and retail remittances.
As several payments transfer and payments services companies are venturing into using blockchain technology for making real-time and transparent payments, the Ripple technology holds an upper edge as it said to provide fastest blockchain-based payment transfers.
Commenting on this new collaboration with these two companies, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said: “It’s no secret that XRP is faster and more efficient than bitcoin or any other digital asset. It settles in three seconds and at fractions of a penny. Payment providers like IDT Corporation and MercuryFX are early movers because they understand what XRP can do for their business and customer experience. We’re excited to have them at the forefront of the Internet of Value.”
Ripple says that the growing acceptance of xRapid solution is a testimony to the fact that the company has made some real progress in developing the Internet of Value (IoV). Ripple’s vision with IoV is establishing instant money transfer just like the way information moves. Ripple’s xRapid solution eliminates the need for any sort of intermediaries or the need to pre-fund accounts in destination currencies.
MercuryFX — a leading global currency exchange provider, is focusing on establishing real-time payments by reducing friction in global payments and challenging the status quo in retail remittance payments. Alastair Constance, CEO and founder of Mercury FX said: Ripple, XRP and fiat currency fit hand in glove. What we’re doing together is realizing one of the best use cases for frictionless transactions, which is international settlement. xRapid allows us to drive down the cost of currency exchange and global settlement, making our customers more competitive and saving them tens of millions of dollars each year.”
Constance further added saying “Digital assets promise fast transaction speeds but XRP is far faster than all of them, including bitcoin. Cutting settlement times from hours and days to just three seconds or less will remove billions of dollars in unnecessary intermediary fees.”
On the other hand, for IDT Corporation which facilitates online money transfer between individuals, the primary aim is to bring low-cost payments for its customers. Alfredo O’Hagan, senior vice president of IDT’s consumer payments business said: “We’re excited to pilot Ripple’s xRapid solution for on-demand liquidity. We expect that xRapid will enable us to settle more transactions in real-time and at a lower cost.”
Ripple, having a phenomenal run last year, with its price surging by 30,000 percent in 2017, the cryptocurrency remains as one of the hot picks of analysts this year. Many, are quite optimistic and positive on Ripple’s growth story and believe that the cryptocurrency could possibly see a mainstream adoption by severals financial institutions by the end of 2018.
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