This is the first money transfer deal from the middle east to establish instant money transfer.
Ripple continues to push itself to have a bigger footprint of its blockchain service around the globe and this time the blockchain startup has inked a deal with UAE exchange – a foreign exchange giant owned by Travelex billionaire Bavaguthu Shetty.
This deal aims at establishing instant cross-border payments and is the first global money transfer deal from the middle east to offer real-time and seamless payments solution. While making a public announcement, the UAE exchange tweeted:
#UAEExchange partners with @Ripple for instant cross-border payments & becomes the first global #money_transfer business in Middle East to offer real-time, seamless #payment solutions using #blockchain technology. Read more: https://t.co/iXbUycOB6b pic.twitter.com/vC8cagF3s9
— UAE Exchange (@uaeexchange) February 11, 2018
CEO of UAE Exchange Group – Promoth Manghat said: “Incorporating Ripple’s blockchain technology into our payments systems will bring customers an enhanced, new payments experience. The early adoption of this game-changing technology allows us to offer a competitive service, as it will have an impact on the speed and cost of cross-border transactions. We are proud to deliver the future of payments with Ripple.”
The UAE Exchange currently grabs a 6.75% share of the global remittance market which is worth $575 million and wants to increase this to 10% by 2020. With over 800 branches spread across a horizon of 30 countries, this will turn out to be the largest UAE-based exchange to integrate blockchain technology in its daily operations.
While commenting on this new deal, Ripple’s global head of infrastructure Dilip Rao said: “We chose to focus on solving inefficiencies in key corridors where payment flows are significant and growing. Adding a market leader like UAE Exchange to RippleNet will bring instant, certain, low-cost payments to the millions of retail customers in the UAE who send money abroad”.
Ripple seems to be on a very serious expansion in the past two months with several financial institutions around the globe collaborating with this San Francisco-based blockchain startup for testing blockchain-based payments solutions and services.
Ripple has recently collaborated with some big names like MoneyGram, IDT Corporation, Mercury FX, Banco Santander and LianLian International. While a few of these are using Ripple’s xCurrent technology without the use of XRP tokens, some others are also using the XRapid solution which provides on-demand liquidity and makes use of the XRP tokens.
Ripple’s rise to popularity started last year in 2017 when it received a backing from more than 100 companies for using its blockchain solutions which included many Korean and Japanese credit card companies.
At the end of 2017, Ripple price jumped above $3 and was trading at its all-time high with around $150 billion valuations then. However, in the latest meltdown of the overall crypto market, Ripple too has fallen sharply, but currently has been in a recovery mode in the past one week.
Currently, at the press time, Ripple is trading for $1.06 with $41 billion valuations, according to CoinMarketCap.
next