Eugenia can call herself a multy-interested person, as she is always in search of new proffessional fields to encompass. After graduating from Belarussian State University with Bachelor degree in both International Communication and Public Relations, she joined a travel startup Fresh Adventures, where she worked for 3 years creating unique itineraries through exotic countries, travelling around the world and developing the company as a partner. Currently, she works as a business analyst in the field of information technologies. She believes that IT is the future, that is why it is so important to keep up with the latest trends in this rapidly growing industry.
Kotak Mahindra Bank, a leading Indian private sector bank headquartered in Mumbai, has announced its recent collaboration with RippleNet, Ripple’s enterprise blockchain network, aiming to improve instant international remittance.
According to the official press release, Kotak Mahindra will leverage San Francisco-based Ripple’s blockchain technology, specifically its settlement solution called xCurrent, to speed up international transactions. Earlier, the process of a normal transaction required several days, but, with Ripple’s latest solution, the remittance time will be reduced to a few minutes. The bank’s customers will finally get an opportunity to conduct cross-border payments with end-to-end tracking at much lower costs.
The Chief Digital Officer of Kotak Mahindra Bank, Deepak Sharma, commented:
“We harness new technologies to simplify and enhance banking services for our customers. xCurrent ticks all the boxes, and enables us to offer our customers a more transparent and efficient global payments service using blockchain. Joining RippleNet also expands our payment network globally by allowing us to connect with other members.”
The emerging markets sending and receiving international payments still face with a problem of low transaction speed. With Ripple’s xCurrent this problem can be solved.
As Ripple’s South Asia Managing Director, Navin Gupta, noted:
“The payments problem is a global problem, particularly for those in emerging markets trying to send regular, low-value remittances overseas. Kotak Mahindra Bank can offer its retail customers a step-change improvement in their inward remittance experience thanks to xCurrent, and we look forward to connecting them to other RippleNet members to expand their global remittance offering.”
xCurrent is already implemented by over 25 global financial organizations willing to enhance their customer experience related to cross-border transactions. The famous British bank Santander UK is among them.
With some $69 billion flowing into the country in 2017, India has been the largest receiver of remittances in recent years. Understanding the point, Ripple opened an office in Mumbai, the country’s financial capital. Not so long ago, Ripple had also announced that three more Indian major banks are planning to leverage its network for international conections.
However, Ripple’s success still remains rather questionable. Earlier in June, Ripple faced some serious obstacles on its way to the massive adoption of its technology. Western Union has chosen to work with XRapid, another advanced technology by Ripple, and after testing it, undermined its efficiency.
Despite of being the world’s third most valuable cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum, Ripple’s native digital asset XRP continues to be ignored by Coinbased for the reason of being a security for Ripple. Rejecting this statement, Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse protected the utility of XRP asset during CB Insights’ Future of Fintech conference, claiming that Ripple is defferent than XRP.
Inspite of its controversial reputation, Ripple continues its further developing aiming to reach global adoption of its innovative solutions.