Zoe Cruz Joins Ripple’s Board of Directors

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Ripple is excited to welcome Zoe Cruz to our board of directors. Cruz served as co-president for institutional securities and wealth management at Morgan Stanley from 2005 to 2007. Prior to that role, she was global head of fixed income, commodities and foreign exchange. She joined Morgan Stanley in 1982 and was the third founding member of the foreign exchange (FX) group.

Forbes named her to its Most Powerful Women list for three years running (2005, 2006, 2007).

Following her 25-year tenure at Morgan Stanley, Cruz founded an investment management firm, Voras Capital Management and was senior adviser at Promontory Financial Group. Today, she is founder and CEO of EOZ Global, a single family office.

Cruz is a member of Old Mutual PLC’s board of directors and is a member of the investment committee for the endowment fund of Bowdoin college.

“With her 35 years of experience in finance and foreign exchange, Zoe will offer us a unique perspective and invaluable guidance on how to accelerate RippleNet growth and XRP usage across the network globally,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple. “The team is incredibly inspired by Zoe’s career and we very much look forward to leveraging her expertise to make our vision —  an Internet of Value —  a reality.”



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Major Thai Banks Use RippleNet to Expedite Cross Border Payments

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Bank customers — both consumers and businesses — have spoken and they demand a faster way to send money globally.

Krungsri (Bank of Ayudhya PCL), one of the largest banks in Thailand, heard the call, and in an effort to better serve their customers, they joined RippleNet to remove the friction from cross-border payments.

In fact, Krungsri now uses Ripple’s enterprise blockchain network to help a large Southeast Asian petrochemical company, send real-time cross-border payments to its foreign customers — a first for financial institutions in the Thai region.

Breaking with the status quo for the good of the customer

The collaboration between Krungsri and the large petrochemical company was born from a common pain point for most corporates: Customers were dissatisfied with the lack of speed and visibility into cross-border payments.

When the company attempted to send payments to their partners it would take several days to complete the transaction.

What’s more, neither the sender nor the receiver had visibility into the status of the payment — which was very frustrating for the petrochemical company’s customers.

If the company continued to use the typical, slow, opaque payments process, then they risked losing valuable foreign partners, which would be detrimental to their bottom line.

That’s when Krungsri stepped in to help their long-time customer.

Krungsri President and Chief Executive Officer Mr. Noriaki Goto said, “We have gained trust from the large petrochemical company, our long-time major business partner, to deploy RippleNet for the money transfer between the company and its overseas trading partners.”

RippleNet-enabled Krungsri provides innovative solution to client

By using Ripple’s blockchain network, Krungsri is not only able to provide a real-time cross-border payment flow for the petrochemical company, but also provide complete transparency into when the payment would be received.

“The transactions were successfully completed within a few seconds versus at least one to three business days under the previous system. This reflects the innovative strength of Ripple’s technology that will drive the Thai business sector towards faster expansion,” added Mr. Goto.

The success of the large petrochemical company’s deployment marked a significant change in the financial landscape for Krungsri, who will continue to reap the benefits from using RippleNet’s blockchain network.

As a subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) — Japan’s largest financial group and one of the world’s five largest financial institutions, with more than 2,000 branches in over 50 countries — Krungsri is positioned to provide instant global payments to service their corporate customers’ needs.

“Using RippleNet will be a catalyst to use additional financial innovations to deliver real-time cross-border payments for other business partners,” concluded Mr. Goto.

Learn how Ripple has helped other corporate modernize global payments.



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Top Korean Banks Work with Ripple to Send Payments

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The ability to send money globally in real time has caught fire in the international financial industry. Large banking groups, such as the Japan Bank Consortium, are leading the charge.

The Japan Bank Consortium — a coalition of 61 banks in Japan, organized by SBI Ripple Asia — has announced the launch of a new Ripple pilot with Woori Bank and Shinhan Bank, two of South Korea’s largest banks with a collective market capitalization of more than $30 billion.

This initiative will be the first time money moves from Japan to Korea over RippleNet.

Korean banks committing to the modernization of payments

The Japan Bank Consortium will use Ripple’s settlement technology, xCurrent, to settle transactions between participating Japanese banks and Woori Bank or Shinhan Bank.

The pilot solidifies the Japan Bank Consortium’s commitment to modernize payment systems — specifically in the Japan/Korea corridor where Korea is Japan’s third largest trade partner — to send money instantly, removing the need for intermediaries while reducing the cost of sending global payments.

SBI Ripple Asia CEO Takashi Okita and Korean bank representatives launch new pilot

What’s more, the Japan Bank Consortium created a virtual currency and blockchain working group to explore the institutional use case of digital currencies, such as XRP, to source on-demand liquidity for these cross-border payments.

Delivering a much-needed solution for cross-border payments

Banks within the Japan Bank Consortium are one of many institutions that are actively working with Ripple to solve the multi-trillion dollar problem plaguing the financial industry, corporates and consumers worldwide — the lack of liquidity (or cash) to instantly send or receive low-cost international payments.

“The Japan Bank Consortium’s pilot with Woori Bank and Shinhan Bank brings us closer to sending money in an important corridor,” said Emi Yoshikawa, director of partnerships at Ripple.

“The use of RippleNet to send cross-border payments reinforces that financial institutions are ready to provide a modern payments experience and enable to the Internet of Value.”

Visit our Solutions page to learn more about our products.



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Ripple Escrows 55 Billion XRP for Supply Predictability

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Image: Shutterstock

Earlier this year, we committed to placing 55 billion XRP in a cryptographically-secured escrow account to create certainty of XRP supply at any given time. As promised, today we completed the lockup.

By securing the lion’s share of XRP in escrow, people can now mathematically verify the maximum supply that can enter the market. While Ripple has proved to be a responsible steward of XRP supply for almost five years – and has clearly demonstrated a tremendous track record of investing in and supporting the XRP ecosystem – this lockup eliminates any concern that Ripple could flood the market, which we’ve pointed out before is a scenario that would be bad for Ripple!

This move underscores Ripple’s commitment to building XRP liquidity and a healthy and trusted market. Long term, the value of digital assets will be determined by their utility. XRP has emerged as the only digital asset with a clear institutional use case designed to solve a multi-trillion dollar problem – the global payment and liquidity challenges that banks, payment providers and corporates face.

Unlike other digital assets purely driven by unexplained speculation, real institutional customers are already using and finding value in XRP, and governments, regulators and central banks are increasingly recognizing the role it could play in the global system.

XRP goes beyond what Bitcoin does well — a store of value — and delivers transaction speed and throughput that is orders of magnitude faster than BTC or ETH. While other digital assets continue to bump against their transaction limits, XRP remains the fastest, most efficient and most scalable digital asset in the world – making it the best digital asset for payments. It’s no surprise that institutions are looking to XRP to provide much-needed on-demand liquidity for cross-border payments.

Here’s how the escrow works:

The Escrow feature in the XRP Ledger allows parties to secure XRP for an allotted amount of time or until specific conditions are met. For example, Escrow allows a sender of XRP to put conditions on exactly when a payment can be completed, so the payment remains cryptographically locked until the due date.

We use Escrow to establish 55 contracts of 1 billion XRP each that will expire on the first day of every month from months 0 to 54. As each contract expires, the XRP will become available for Ripple’s use. You can expect us to continue to use XRP for incentives to market makers who offer tighter spreads for payments and selling XRP to institutional investors.

We’ll then return whatever is unused at the end of each month to the back of the escrow rotation. For example, if 500M XRP remain unspent at the end of the first month, those 500M XRP will be placed into a new escrow account set to expire in month 55. For comparison, Ripple has sold on average 300M XRP per month for the past 18 months.

Ripple’s vision remains the same – to enable the Internet of Value in which money moves like information moves today – and XRP is at the heart.

To learn more, please visit ripple.com/xrp.



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Internet of Value Depends on Interoperability

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An important and highly relevant question has emerged in the financial industry: How does blockchain technology help institutions easily connect to the increasingly diverse types of payment networks?

In our view, the ideal global payments network works just like the internet does — by using a common language to connect disparate systems.

In the nascent stages of the web, there were different standards for networking or connecting computers. It wasn’t shrewd to get rid of each standard — there was a purpose for each one. Instead, it was better to preserve and connect them with a common protocol.

All ledgers should work the same way and use a simple, common language so that money can move around the world real-time, much like information does today — enabling the Internet of value.

Interledger Protocol is driving interoperability

There is a global technical standard that provides this level of interoperability: The Interledger Protocol (ILP). ILP can connect any network or payment system, without fundamentally changing how they work.

All banks and payment providers — from the smallest bank to the largest institution — can use the open protocol to power payments across networks globally.

In fact, The Bank of England recently completed a proof of concept that explored the synchronized settlement of payments using ILP.

Additionally, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation used ILP to power new open-source software — Mojaloop.

ILP helps Mojaloop connect to various payment platforms and help unbanked people around the world access digital financial services.

Stefan Thomas, the co-creator of ILP and CTO of Ripple, expounds on the need for common standards in blockchain in his latest Medium post, “Blockchain Advocates Must Learn the Law of Standards.



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Japan Bank Consortium Moves to Become Production-ready

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The revolution to drive the Internet of Value is gaining more momentum as Japan Bank Consortium (JBC) — a collection of 61 Japan-based bank members brought together by SBI Holdings and SBI Ripple Asia — announced that it’s made progress to become production-ready on RippleNet.

Soon, Japanese banks will not only be quickly onboarded with minimal effort, but also easily connect to other member banks in Ripple’s network — furthering their reach with real-time global settlement.

Each bank will have the ability to use Ripple solutions to send real-time, low-cost, transparent domestic and cross-border payments.

The progression to production-ready is not only good news for JBC, but for also for banks who want to connect to the Japanese market. Foreign banks will have visibility and predictability regarding fees and timing from payments going into and out of Japan.

Expanding network effects to deliver a better customer experience

JBC and Ripple worked together closely to create a unified platform for domestic and cross-border payments using Ripple solutions.

xCurrent — Ripple’s solution for real-time settlement — provided the technology for this new offering to reduce correspondent and operational costs, expand access to foreign banks, and increase visibility into the status of payments.

In addition, early next year JBC will release an API connection called Common Gateway that provides banks with easy access to xCurrent on the shared platform, as well as Common App. Common App is a mobile application that allows users to use a bank account number, mobile phone number or QR code to send payments.

“JBC’s progress to become production-ready is the culmination of the Ripple team’s ingenuity and dedication to modernizing payment systems, and the consortium’s desire to improve the settlement process,” said Emi Yoshikawa, Ripple’s director of joint venture partnerships.

“Now Japanese banks will be able to further their reach into RippleNet and easily connect to other banks.”

To learn more about xCurrent, xRapid or xVia visit our Solutions page.



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Michael Arrington Launches XRP Capital Fund

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Michael Arrington, the founder and former editor-in-chief of TechCrunch, announced the launch of his new XRP capital fund on stage at Consensus Invest today.

The fund, titled Arrington XRP Capital is one of the world’s largest crypto hedge funds and is entirely denominated in XRP. Additionally, the fund will start with $100 million and will use XRP to invest in blockchain technology and asset entities.

Arrington’s decision to solely use XRP to power his capital fund further validates that this digital currency provides the best use case for real-time, transparent and secure transactions.

In fact, not only does XRP provide much-needed liquidity for cross-border payments, it’s the fastest, most scalable and stable digital asset on the charts — making it the most appropriate for institutional use.

“Even though Ripple does not play an official role in the fund, we are glad to see that Michael Arrington is using his legendary entrepreneurial spirit to create one of the largest digital currency hedge funds using XRP,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple.

Arrington XRP Capital will start trading soon. Check out what Michael Arrington has to say about the new hedge fund.



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Axis Bank, RAKBANK, Standard Charter use RippleNet to Send Payments

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In today’s increasingly globalized world — where international supply chains as well as the number of overseas workers are growing — it’s imperative to have fast, transparent cross-border payments.

To meet this increasing demand for real-time payment services, Axis Bank (based in India), Standard Chartered (Singapore), and RAKBANK (United Arab Emirates) will now use RippleNet to send live, fast, frictionless cross-border payments.

These three major banks use Ripple’s leading enterprise-blockchain solution to power real-time, on-demand corporate payments from Standard Chartered to Axis Bank, and retail remittance payments from RAKBANK to Axis Bank beneficiaries. Now, live payments are completed in just minutes — with the certainty of settlement.

Live corporate payment services on RippleNet to serve customers better

For Standard Chartered and Axis Bank, the Ripple-powered corporate payment service will allow each bank to offer their business customers an enhanced payments experience, ultimately enabling their end-customers to manage their cash flow, costs, and float better.

By our estimates, there are between 200-300 large, international corporates with regional treasury hubs in Singapore. These corporates span industries including fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and retail.

Often these corporates manufacture their products in India before shipping them to Singapore for worldwide distribution. In fact, the Singapore-India trade corridor is worth $15 billion.

Ripple-enabled cross-border payments will help unlock this corridor on both sides for Standard Chartered and Axis Bank.

Live retail payment service in the world’s biggest remittance market

It’s also never been more important for retail remittances to be instant, efficient, and secure between the UAE and India. Retail remittances between the two countries are significant and growing, thanks to the large Indian workforce in the UAE.

These workers send a significant proportion of their salaries home every year — nearly $12.6 billion annually — which RAKBANK wants to support with faster, easier, and more transparent payments.

Individual retail remittance payments are usually lower in value, but higher in volume. Processing these over RippleNet will allow RAKBANK to offer their retail customers an easier, more affordable experience, helping them to increase their market share in this crowded and competitive space.

What leaders at Ripple and major banks have to say about using RippleNet

Marcus Treacher, Ripple’s global head of strategic accounts said: “Standard Chartered, Axis Bank, and RAKBANK recognize the evolving demands of their customers and are leaning in to better serve their needs today and into tomorrow as expectations for speed and transparency will only rise. This commercial service is a significant step toward helping corporates and migrant workers around the world unlock trillions of dollars in trapped working capital, accelerate global commerce, and send vital funds home as quickly as possible.”

Gautam Jain, global head of digitisation and client access, transaction Banking at Standard Chartered said: “The successful launch of our commercial cross-border payment service marks a significant milestone in the financial industry’s progress in applying distributed ledger technology for corporates. We are incredibly proud to be leading the way in this area. This affirms our commitment to digitisation and innovation as we continuously look at new way

Axis Bank President of Transaction Banking Himadri Chatterjee said: “While there have been significant innovations in domestic payments, cross-border remittance has seen limited developments. Using APIs and distributed ledger technology, there is an opportunity to radically change the way international payments are handled. We are excited with the potential the technology has to bring innovative services to the market and help us enhance value to our customers.”

Peter England, RAKBANK CEO, said: “We at RAKBANK believe in leveraging new technologies that constantly enhance our customer experience and by using Ripple’s Blockchain solution to power international payments, our customers can now send money home easily and in real time. Joining the Ripple network is in line with not only our Blockchain strategy, but it also allows us to expand our remittance footprint. This will help us scale our business and provide our customers with a first-class digital payments experience.”

Contact us to learn more about joining RippleNet.



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Ripple adds Benjamin Lawsky to Board of Directors

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In addition to adding a new CFO, Ripple is proud to announce the appointment our newest board member, Benjamin Lawsky.

Lawsky, the former superintendent of financial services for the state of New York, has more than two decades of experience in both federal and state government. He’s also a luminary in the financial services and digital-asset space.

In fact, Lawsky created BitLicense — an industry-leading regulation for digital-asset businesses operating in the state of New York.

Additionally, Lawsky has served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, chief counsel to U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), chief of staff for Governor Andrew Cuomo, as well as co-chair of Governor Cuomo’s Cyber Security Advisory Board.

Joining Ripple’s board of directors to accelerate innovation

As Ripple’s newest board member, Lawsky will play an integral role in helping financial institutions adopt XRP for institutional use, which in turn removes the friction from global payments.

“Ripple and its leadership are passionate about making our global financial system more efficient, more secure and more fair,” said Lawsky.

“I share those same goals and I’m thrilled and humbled to work side by side with their incredible team as they continue to pave the way for the growth and accelerating adoption of blockchain and digital assets in the years ahead.”

Read our press release to learn more about Benjamin Lawsky’s appointment.



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AMEX Joins RippleNet

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The movement to modernize the global payment system is quickly gaining momentum as another major global financial services company joins RippleNet.

American Express is the latest company to become a member of RippleNet, joining the ranks of Credit Agricole, Airwallex, Cuallix, and more.

American Express is joining Ripple’s blockchain network to provide real-time, business-to-business global payments that will ultimately enhance their customers’ experience.

Initially, American Express FX International Payments (FXIP) will partner with Santander UK to create a transaction channel between the U.S. and U.K. — a first and a boon for the corridor. The U.S. is the U.K.’s largest trading partner, creating an immediate need for frictionless corporate global payments in the U.K. market.

Partnering to deliver faster, better service

By leveraging the power of RippleNet, FXIP customers will see an immediate improvement in how they send money globally.

Compared with the traditional payment process, Ripple’s blockchain-enabled payments simplify connections with intermediaries and provide immediate end-to-end visibility into the transaction status and cost.

What’s more, FXIP’s use of RippleNet will maintain the level of security that American Express customers have come to know and expect.

“We’ve already seen evidence that blockchain technology is playing a transformational role in the way customers are served,” said Greg Keeley, executive vice president of global corporate payments at American Express.

“Not only does this partnership with Ripple help decrease the time it takes for international transactions to be processed, it can make our transactions more effective for our customers,” Keeley added.

Joining forces to avoid settling for less

FXIP’s partnership with Santander UK to send cross-border payments between the U.S and U.K will help American Express not only streamline corporate payments, but also establish a wider footprint in the U.K.

José Luis Calderón, Santander’s global head of transaction banking, said, “This blockchain solution opens up a new channel between the U.S. and the U.K. and presents a significant opportunity for payments globally.

“Collaborating with forward-thinking businesses has enabled us to deliver this cutting-edge, secure, friction-free payment solution and extend our ‘Simple, Personal, Fair’ philosophy to American Express and their customers.”

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse agreed with Calderón’s statement stating, “Ripple is taking a huge step forward with American Express and Santander in solving the problems corporate customers experience with global payments.”

“Transfers that used to take days will be completed in real time, allowing money to move as fast as businesses move today. It’s just the beginning, and we look forward to growing this partnership to help other American Express FXIP customers.

Contact us to learn more about Ripple’s growing network, and how other companies are helping to create one frictionless experience to send money globally.



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