Q3 2019 XRP Markets Report

[ad_1]

Ripple publishes the quarterly XRP Markets Report to voluntarily provide unparalleled transparency and regular updates on the state of the XRP market, including quarterly programmatic and institutional sales updates, relevant XRP-related announcements such as Xpring and RippleNet partnerships, and commentary on previous quarter market developments. As an owner of XRP, Ripple believes proactive communication is part of being a responsible stakeholder. Moreover, Ripple urges others in the industry to follow its lead to build trust, foster open communication, and raise the bar industry-wide.

XRP Ledger—History

The XRP ledger is a decentralized cryptographic ledger powered by a network of peer-to-peer servers. The XRP ledger is the home of XRP, a digital asset designed to bridge the many different currencies in use worldwide. When the XRP ledger began in 2012, 100 billion units of XRP were created and no more XRP will ever be created. The available XRP supply decreases over time as small amounts are destroyed to pay transaction costs. Ripple was gifted a portion of this XRP and periodically sells a small amount of that into the market.

Decrease in XRP Sales

As readers may recall from the previous quarterly report, Ripple publicly announced our intention to shift to a more conservative volume benchmark for our XRP sales, away from CoinMarketCap and to CryptoCompare Top Tier. In the third quarter, we significantly reduced our XRP sales, consistent with the messaging we shared in the Q2 report. For Q3 19, our total XRP sales were $66.24 million vs. $251.51 million in the previous quarter. Per the Q2 report, our stated goal for programmatic sales for Q3 was approximately 10 basis points of the new volume benchmark (CCTT), and we ended sales for the quarter below that, at 8.8 bps. In fact, part way through Q3, we decided to pause programmatic sales altogether, and focus our over-the-counter (OTC) sales on a few strategic partners, who are building XRP utility and liquidity in regions that are strategically important to our growing global business, including EMEA and Asia. Total sales including OTC and programmatic ended the quarter at 36 bps of CCTT.

As a result of this discipline, Ripple’s XRP distribution rate since the beginning of the quarter has been lower compared to the inflation rates of ETH and LTC, and similar to BTC – see chart below.

Source: Coinmarketcap and internal data

NOTE: No new XRP can ever be created post the Genesis block, so XRP actually has a slight negative inflation rate due to the destruction of XRP related to transaction fees. Therefore, the line above reflects Ripple’s distribution of XRP, but not the asset’s inflation rate.

Q3 Highlights

  • Ripple sold $66.24 million XRP in Q3 2019, a 73.7% decrease in sales in XRP QoQ, as measured in USD.
  • Overall market capitalization of digital assets decreased in Q3, with the overall market cap losing 30.4%. XRP price declined 35.4% QoQ.
  • Three billion XRP were released out of cryptographic escrow, 2.30 billion XRP were returned to escrow.
  • XRP is now listed on over 140 exchanges worldwide.

Sales Summary (dollars in millions) Q2 2019 Q3 2019
Institutional direct sales 106.87 50.12
Programmatic sales 144.64 16.12
Total sales 251.51 66.24
Global XRP volume Q2 2019 Q3 2019
ADV XRP (dollars in millions) 429.51 198.10
Total XRP volume (dollars in billions) 39.09 18.23
Total sales as % of total volume 0.6% 0.4%

Looking ahead to Q4, we will continue to monitor volume developments closely and intend to maintain a similar approach to Ripple’s XRP sales as compared with Q3.

Volume

CCTT’s reported daily volume for XRP decreased in Q3 from the previous quarter. The average daily volume was $198.10 million in Q3 versus $429.51 million in Q2, though higher than $156.01 million in Q1.

Volatility

Based on CCTT’s reported volume, XRP’s volatility of daily returns over the quarter was 3.6%, which is lower than the previous quarter’s 5.0%. XRP’s volatility was lower than that of other top digital assets, as BTC’s volatility of daily returns through Q3 was 3.9% and ETH’s was 4.3%.

Q3 Escrow Activity

In Q3 2019, three billion XRP were again released out of escrow (one billion each month). 2.30 billion XRP were returned and subsequently put into new escrow contracts. The majority of the unused portion of the 700 million XRP not returned to escrow was being held in operating wallets at the end of the quarter. All figures are reported based on transactions executed during the quarter.

Spread of Misinformation

Last quarter, there was an uptick in FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and the spread of misinformation about XRP, especially around topics such as purported XRP dumping and price manipulation by Ripple. FUD is a tool typically used to undermine new technologies. Due to the nature of digital asset markets, FUD runs rampant, often perpetrated by those with political or financial interests in certain cryptocurrencies. Healthy dialogue, transparency, and pragmatism are vital to dispel misinformation, properly educate the market, and foster innovation in our industry. 

Though Twitter is not the only place where FUD persists, bots on Twitter (accounts with high indication of automated publishing activity, based on Indiana University research) contributed to the propagation of FUD across the digital asset industry. They comprised 49% of the share of conversation about BTC, 71% about ETH and 50% about XRP1

In Q3, bots have been more active in conversations around XRP, with the number of unique bots rising and engaging in messages related to:

FUD #1: Dumping allegations

  • Conversation from bots specifically about Ripple “dumping XRP” and “flooding the market,” increased 179% quarter over quarter.
  • “Dumping” allegations were the most common FUD topic of conversation in recent months compared to others.

Truth

  • Conversations attempted to support the allegations by pointing to large movements of XRP, which were in fact transfers between Ripple treasury and escrow management accounts. In other words, those transfers did not entail Ripple distributing XRP. 
  • Critics further focused conversation on the fact that large XRP holders exist—referred to as “whales.” Large holders exist in many digital asset communities such as bitcoin and ether. We do not see evidence that large holders of XRP are behaving materially differently than BTC or ETH “whales.”

FUD #2: Price Manipulation

  • Nearly half (49%) of all conversations alleging Ripple “made XRP price fall” came from bot accounts.

Truth

  • Bottom line—Ripple cannot control XRP price. XRP is traded on a fully functioning and independent digital asset market, including over 140 exchanges, in which Ripple plays a very limited role.
  • XRP exists independently of Ripple. The XRP Ledger is a free, open-source, decentralized technology. Others can and do develop on it and use it. If Ripple went away tomorrow, the Ledger would continue to exist and XRP would continue to trade. 
  • As a stakeholder of XRP, Ripple is an interested party in its success. We are aligned with other XRP stakeholders and focused on supporting a healthy XRP community.

While misinformation persists across all markets and news topics, as this industry matures, we believe conversations about the use cases, commercial traction, and human impact of digital assets will dominate. We support the many industry players focused on real utility regardless of token association. It’s on all of us to rise above the FUD and the tone-deaf who treat digital assets like a religion instead of technologies that can solve real world problems.

RippleNet On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) / XRapid

Ripple continues to experience high customer demand for On-Demand Liquidity (formerly known as xRapid), which leverages XRP to source liquidity for cross-border transactions, enabling instant settlement and more efficient use of working capital.

XRP is ideally suited for global payments because it is faster, less costly and far more scalable than other digital assets. 

Here is a quick snapshot of XRP vs. bitcoin (as of 10/14):

  • Speed: 3.80 seconds (XRP) vs. 9.2 minutes (BTC)
  • TPS: 1500+ (XRP) vs. 7 (BTC)
  • Fee: $0.0003 (XRP) vs. $0.758 (BTC)

While bitcoin’s utility is often highlighted as a store of value, we believe XRP is by far the best digital asset for global payments. 

Ripple customers live with ODL, including MoneyGram and others, increased by 75% last quarter and dollar volume on ODL increased more than five times from Q2 to Q3. In addition, Ripple announced its acquisition of team Algrim to support the ongoing development of ODL. To keep up with strong customer demand, Ripple is rapidly expanding its team on a global scale—Iceland will serve as one of Ripple’s engineering hubs with plans to bring on more technical talent in Europe. 

Xpring

Last quarter, Ripple announced Xpring’s new developer platform to make it easier for developers and entrepreneurs to build on the XRP Ledger and use XRP. The platform leverages open-source technologies, protocols and networks making it easy for the 23 million developers worldwide to enable payments in their products and services.

Of note, Ripple acquired Logos to add to the Xpring team. This team will focus on decentralized financial (DeFi) projects and explore a system that will leverage XRP at its core, as well as other ideas to update digital assets to transform payments and finance. Xpring continues to see innovation in new use cases such as trading, micropayments for content, and gaming. Other notable traction and news from Q3 include:

  • Xpring invested in Coinme, a global leader in cryptocurrency ATMs and blockchain financial services, to advance the adoption of cryptocurrencies, such as XRP.
  • Coil, a streaming micropayments tool that uses the Interledger Protocol (ILP) and any currency, including XRP, partnered with Mozilla and Creative Commons to launch Grant for the Web.
  • Bitpay partnered with Xpring to natively support XRP, which will enable thousands of businesses to accept XRP for payments.

Market Commentary

Notable Regulatory Activity

  • UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued guidance to clarify definitions and domains for different crypto assets. They recognize ETH has the features of a hybrid exchange and utility token (not a security token). The FCA has previously called out the similarities between ETH and XRP, and noted in a press release that XRP would not be regulated as a security.

Industry Player Moves

  • Blockstack’s token sale became the first SEC-qualified offering in U.S. history. 
  • Visa, Mastercard, Mercado Pago, Booking Holdings, PayPal, eBay, and Stripe reconsidered their involvement in the Libra consortium.
  • SWIFT launched a new API standard for pre-authorization of funds which will allow a payer’s bank to guarantee funds in advance of a payment. 
  • The Federal Reserve Bank announced “FedNow,” a new service that will allow all banks in the United States to offer 24/7 real-time payment services. 
  • Mastercard acquired the account-to-account capabilities of Nets to further develop its real-time payments capabilities. 

Conclusion

Q3 was marked by continued discipline around Ripple’s XRP sales and significant traction for XRP in both RippleNet’s ODL offering as well as the expanding developer community. These activities underscore the continued maturation of digital asset markets. Ripple will continue to take proactive steps to address misinformation and FUD while being a responsible and transparent stakeholder of XRP. 

If interested, please find the Q2 2019 XRP Markets Report here.


1 Statistics are sourced via publicly available Twitter posts from July 1 to September 30, 2019, in partnership with Methods+Mastery.

[ad_2]

Source link

MoneyGram CEO to Highlight the Impact of Digital Assets and Blockchain Technology at Swell 2019

[ad_1]

The remittance industry is rapidly evolving: competition is fierce; urgency to quickly enter new markets has never been higher; and customers are demanding fast, low-cost global payments. As one of the world’s largest money transfer companies, MoneyGram is at the head of the pack—forging strategic partnerships and leveraging emerging technologies with the goal of improving the antiquated cross-border payments experience. At Swell 2019, MoneyGram Chairman and CEO W. Alexander Holmes will share insights from his experience driving this transformation across the company and discuss what lies ahead for the broader payments industry.

MoneyGram partnered with Ripple to streamline their global liquidity management and increase operational efficiency. By joining Ripple’s network of more than 200 customers worldwide, RippleNet, MoneyGram can easily utilize On-Demand Liquidity (ODL): a service that eliminates pre-funding by leveraging the digital asset XRP as a bridge between fiat currencies for instant settlement. Today’s $600 billion global remittance industry relies on traditional foreign exchange markets to meet its settlement obligations, which require advance purchases of most currencies—a costly and slow endeavor that ties up resources.

Under Holmes’s leadership, MoneyGram plays an integral role in enabling more economic opportunity, especially to emerging markets. MoneyGram has expanded their services to Mexico and the Philippines, countries where remittance transfers are high-cost and pain points of cross-border payments are felt by consumers and financial institutions alike.

Holmes’s work to streamline MoneyGram’s operations and enable frictionless global payments serves as an instructive model for companies looking to provide a similar customer experience.

He joins Swell’s global roster of speakers across financial services, payments, technology and policy to discuss the trends that are shaping the future of global payments. Join this discussion at Ripple’s invite-only customer event in Singapore, Nov. 7-8.

To learn more about Swell and to view the full agenda, visit our website. 

[ad_2]

Source link

Our Investment in Bitso | Ripple

[ad_1]

In 2018, remittance flows into Latin America and the Caribbean increased by almost 10%, with Mexico receiving the largest amount of these payments in the region with over $35.7B transacted every year. Remittances are vital for the economy and an important source of financial support for many households in the region. Technologies like blockchain and digital assets could transform the remittance landscape by making it easier, quicker and cheaper to send money across borders. At Ripple, we are building new rails and working with our infrastructure partners to make this future a reality.

That’s why Ripple is excited to announce that we are leading an investment round in Bitso, the leading exchange in Latin America, and that I am joining the board of directors. 

Ripple’s partnership with Bitso starts at the beginning—I met the team back in 2014 and saw the technology they had built and thought, “This four person shop is able to send money across borders with technology faster than the big banks. That’s incredible. It reminded me of sending my first email instantly to a friend across the world.” This innovative company plays a vital role in RippleNet’s US – MXN corridor by providing critical liquidity for payments. Earlier this year, Ripple launched On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) capabilities with MoneyGram into Mexico, with Bitso as the key exchange partner. As Ripple expands ODL in Latin America, so too will our partnership with Bitso. 

Launched in 2014, Bitso was the first cryptocurrency exchange in Mexico and had an ambitious mission to provide financial services for both the banked and unbanked with blockchain technology and digital assets. Today, they are the largest exchange in Mexico with a customer base of 750,000 and counting. Bitso’s products have a strong focus on ease of use, which has helped drive the adoption of cryptocurrency among a broad audience including retail consumers, traders and institutional customers. 

At Ripple, we work with regulated institutions to provide consumer protections and safeguards. Two months ago, Bitso became Latin America’s first DLT licensed exchange regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC). With this license, Bitso is poised to be one of the most innovative and consumer-friendly financial services providers in LatAm. 

The Bitso team is unparalleled—their technology was built from the ground up through years of experience with scalable and reliable distributed systems. The company and team are well positioned to execute a global expansion to LatAm and we are excited to partner with them in this next phase of growth.

[ad_2]

Source link

Ripple to Bring Blockchain Technology to Finastra’s Banking Customers

[ad_1]

Collaboration will enable financial institutions using Finastra’s solutions to make fast and reliable cross-border payments.

LONDON, October 9, 2019 – Ripple and Finastra have teamed up to offer Ripple’s blockchain technology through Finastra’s payments solutions to support fast cross-border payments. As part of the collaboration, Finastra’s customers will be able to connect and transact with RippleNet partners – more than 200 financial institutions worldwide – and in turn, partners can access Finastra’s vast global footprint. Users will also be able to send international payments with end-to-end tracking and visibility into fees, delivery time and status.

Finastra’s hundreds of customers will have access to RippleNet, Ripple’s global blockchain payments network, to provide faster, cheaper and more reliable payments. Customers will be hosted on Ripple’s cloud solution which will significantly improve speed of integration with other network partners and allow for faster upgrades. They will also have the option to use On-Demand Liquidity, which leverages the digital asset XRP for cross border payments.

This partnership will give Ripple’s more than 200 customers access to Finastra’s extensive network of banks, allowing mutual customers to easily access and partner with each other, increasing overall volume on the network. Finastra’s banking customers currently process millions of transactions each month.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with a forward-thinking company like Finastra to bring Ripple’s technology to their many customers,” said Marcus Treacher, SVP of Customer Success at Ripple. “Finastra is an established fintech player and works with a majority of the world’s top banks. This partnership will enable Ripple to expand the reach and solutions for our partners, and the footprint of RippleNet while allowing customers to transact directly with each other.”

“Finastra’s collaboration with Ripple is another strong example of Finastra’s belief that the future of finance is open, and it demonstrates our commitment to bringing the latest innovations and choices to our customers. Collaborating with a company like Ripple that harnesses innovative blockchain technology to provide fast and reliable cross-border payments is particularly beneficial for our customers in geographies where cost of correspondent banking is high,” said Riteesh Singh, Senior Vice President, FMS, Finastra.

For more information about how Ripple and RippleNet can offer faster, cheaper and more transparent global payments, please visit us here.

[ad_2]

Source link

Academia, Take the Wheel: UBRI Enters Its Sophomore Year in High Gear

[ad_1]

Berkeley, CA  – Today is day two of UBRI Connect, the first-ever annual convening of the University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI), a global network of leading universities at the forefront of research and innovation in blockchain, cryptocurrency and fintech. Now in its second year, UBRI is hitting its stride as a major contributor to the development of the global blockchain ecosystem, and UBRI Connect exemplifies this progress.

Faculty and students from 40 universities across more than a dozen countries have come to the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley to share research and collaborate. Conference attendees represent wide-ranging areas of study and technical expertise across academic disciplines, including engineering, business and law.

UBRICon’s 40+ speakers are among the leaders in their respective fields. They are deeply engaged in exploring and solving technical, business and regulatory challenges that are vital to mainstream adoption and scalability of blockchain, as well as the use of digital assets in banking, energy, healthcare, government and nonprofit sectors.

Day One Highlights
Following an all-night hackathon in which more than 100 students competed, UBRICon kicked off with a bang. Ripple’s SVP of Xpring Ethan Beard unveiled plans for the next chapter of Xpring along with a new developer platform to make it easy to integrate money into apps—whether it’s US dollars, Philippine pesos, XRP, ETH or currency of any kind. Beard also shared details about new tools, services and programs for developers building with XRP Ledger and Interledger Protocol (ILP).

Other highlights included technical presentations from the University of Oregon’s Jun Li on how to identify compromised cryptocurrency miners in network traffic; Northeastern University’s Cristina Nita-Rotaru on building security and resilience in credit networks; The University of Kansas’s Perry Alexander on remote attestation and trust; and University of Nicosia’s Klitos Christodoulou on approaches to monitoring unique node lists in distributed ledger technology (DLT).

In the Business and Law track, Carnegie Mellon University’s Ariel Zetlin-Jones and Bryan Routledge spoke about settlement and blockchain equilibria, Farshad Ghodoosi discussed legal aspects of smart contracts, and University College London’s Simone Righi presented his work on optimal incentives and structures in decentralized platform economics.

The Critical Role of Universities in Driving Innovation
When Ripple embarked on the journey to more purposefully engage academia through UBRI, it was in recognition of the special role universities have historically played in the development and deployment of new technologies and the realization of their potential uses and benefits to society. Ripple hoped to find common cause with faculty and students and to engage them in research and technical development that would generate broadly applicable learnings and widely usable solutions.

UBRI Connect has brought this objective to life. Set apart from the typical blockchain event, this conference features presentations, both technical and non-technical, that are offering attendees practical new approaches to research and ways in which they can better solve challenges they’re facing today. Students, professors, entrepreneurs and Ripple employees took turns sharing ideas and asking questions. In fact, participation in UBRI Connect is particularly global and diverse, with attendees from 5 continents and a number of US-based Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), including Morgan State University, a UBRI partner since early 2019.

Over the past year, UBRI has already inspired well over 100 active research projects on an expansive array of topics. There have been genuine breakthroughs in cryptography and other fields. Most importantly, UBRI is seeding a powerful and inclusive community of thinkers and doers—as well as interns and future job candidates—who are already turning blockchain dreams into reality.

[ad_2]

Source link

Announcing the Next Chapter of Xpring, Ripple’s Developer Platform

[ad_1]

At Ripple, we’re enabling the world to move value like information moves today. It’s this vision, known as the Internet of Value (IoV), that drives everything we do: from building our global payments network, RippleNet, to establishing initiatives like Xpring—which is helping scale innovative blockchain projects through partnership and investment. 

Today, we are thrilled to announce the next evolution of Xpring—now the open developer platform for money. Similar to how RippleNet is a growing global network for financial institutions, Xpring will become a global network for developers. 

This new platform offers a set of tools, services and programs that makes it easier for developers to send and receive payments in any currency, across any network, using the XRP Ledger and Interledger Protocol. In short, Xpring removes the pain and friction from integrating money into apps. 

Unlocking Economic Value
Payments today are antiquated. They can take days to arrive and operate in a maze of siloed networks. Traditional payment rails were built decades ago and do not meet today’s business and consumer demands for reliable, fast, convenient and low-cost payments. The time for change is now. In the same way the Internet unlocked economic growth through democratization of information, the IoV will unlock economic value through global access to and digitization of money.

Over the past five years, the Internet accounted for 21% of the GDP growth in mature economies. In a given country, each 1% increase of electronic payments creates $100 billion additional GDP.  We believe that the ongoing transformation of the global payments industry will present opportunities to create similarly large and impactful businesses as we saw during the growth of the internet. 

The IoV has the opportunity to enable billions of people around the world to instantly make transactions, increase financial inclusion for millions of unbanked consumers and give rise to entirely new businesses and industries. Yet, to bring the IoV to life the developer community needs more. 

Realizing IoV Through a Developer Ecosystem
With Xpring, we are arming developers with easy access to technology proven to move money instantly across any payments network. 

XRP has the fastest and most scalable settlement of any top digital asset and a proven use case beyond an alternative store of value—cross-border payments via RippleNet. When paired with ILP, XRP bridges the gap between any fiat or digital asset and forms a universal, ubiquitous way to make payments. Developers who build with ILP experience infinite scalability and are not locked into a single crypto ledger. Together, ILP and XRP enable trading in cross-blockchain transactions, micropayments, and web monetization for an array of industries like media and gaming. 

But this is just the beginning. Xpring will further improve and build out these technologies and offer developer support, advocacy and partnerships to help them solve real problems faster. Only by growing the developer ecosystem around fast and low-cost payments technology will the real power of XRP and ILP be realized. 

Get Involved Today
Change doesn’t happen alone. Ripple is partnering with developers and the community at large to help bring these technologies mainstream and realize the IoV. We are building products that address developer needs who want to be a part of and capitalize on the IoV. 

This is our call to the community to get involved. Begin to build features for new use cases on the XRP Ledger. Send test payments with ILP. Build on top of the Xpring SDK. Run a validator. These are just some of the ways the industry will continue to move forward together.

Share your thoughts with us on the XRP Chat Forums or reach out to the Xpring team.

[ad_2]

Source link

Ripple Continues Acquisition Streak, Expands European Operations to Iceland

[ad_1]

Ripple, the leader in enterprise blockchain solutions for cross-border payments, today launched operations in Iceland to further expand its presence in Europe. In addition, the company welcomes a new team of engineers with its acqui-hire of Icelandic crypto trading firm Algrim.

Ripple is on an acquisition streak—last week, the company announced its acquisition of Logos, adding eight engineers to the Xpring team who will lead the charge in exploring solutions for a decentralized finance (DeFi) system built on XRP. Both team acquisitions point to Ripple’s strong market momentum and focus on attracting and developing the best in engineering talent. 

Ripple is the only company in the blockchain payments space that has a real use case and real customers: enabling financial institutions to leverage digital assets for highly efficient cross-border payments. This year alone, the company has signed on several of the world’s largest financial institutions—such as MoneyGram—to its global payments network, RippleNet. To keep up with strong customer demand and market opportunity, Ripple is rapidly expanding its team on a global scale with today marking its second engineering talent acquisition in one week.

The new Icelandic team will play an integral role in the ongoing development of Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product which utilizes XRP for production cross-border payments. Iceland will serve as one of Ripple’s engineering hubs with plans to bring on more technical talent in the region.

“With built-in expertise in trading and exchanges, the addition of Algrim’s engineering talent to our team will be instrumental in continuing the momentum we’re already experiencing with On-Demand Liquidity,” said Christopher Kanaan, SVP of Engineering. “We’ve been committed to sourcing expert crypto and trading talent in key global markets since day one, and the acquisition of the Algrim engineering team is a successful example of doing just that.”

Led by seasoned industry executive Dadi Armannsson, the former Algrim team will provide Ripple with more than a decade’s worth of experience building trading platforms. For the past two years, Algrim has developed its crypto trading platform integrating over 30 markets. Before that, the team spent over a decade building traditional trading platforms and foreign exchange trading algorithms. 

“The decision to join the Ripple team was a natural fit — both companies share a vision to enable widespread adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology, which aligns directly with what we’ve been working towards for the past several years,” said Algrim CEO Dadi Armannsson. “We are big believers in XRP and the XRP Ledger, and eager to help build the future of payments at Ripple.”

This acquisition and opening of the Iceland office will accelerate Ripple’s global reach, bringing on strategic partners and financial institutions to RippleNet. Ripple has over 200 customers signed on to RippleNet with over a dozen customers leveraging XRP in cross-border transactions.

[ad_2]

Source link

DBS Group CEO Piyush Gupta to Discuss the Future of Digital Banking at Swell 2019

[ad_1]

At a time of extreme competition in the banking sector and a growing threat by fintech startups, DBS Group CEO Piyush Gupta helped usher in a period of digital innovation—bringing the financial institution to the forefront of global banking leadership. Gupta will take the stage at Swell 2019 to share insights from this experience and what lies ahead in digital banking. 

Rather than be disrupted by competition, Gupta transformed the financial institution to operate with the speed and efficiency of a tech company. In this way, he helped DBS implement one of the world’s most comprehensive bank programs—encompassing a complete company culture shift and a measurement framework to quantify the impact of their digital transformation.

Today, the bank applies emerging technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning to meet changing customer demands for faster, more accessible financial services. This technological change is evident both within Singapore, DBS Bank’s headquarters, and globally. For example, in India, DBS provides customers with almost an entirely digital experience through the launch of the region’s first mobile-only bank—powered by AI.

Gupta’s push for digital transformation has shaped the future of banking. His experience is paramount as leading financial institutions compete to meet today’s customer expectations. At Swell, Gupta joins the world’s most trusted voices across financial services, payments, technology and policy to discuss the new reality unfolding in the financial industry. 

Our bold roster includes keynote speakers Ambassador Chan Heng Chee, Dr. Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and Distinguished Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago and Kamal Quadir, CEO of bKash.

Each Swell speaker brings a unique background and perspective amid today’s technological transformation. Don’t miss your chance to be a part of this important dialog at Ripple’s invite-only customer event in Singapore, Nov. 7-8.

[ad_2]

Source link

Ambassador Chan Heng Chee to Highlight U.S.-China Politics and Geoeconomics at Swell 2019

[ad_1]

The U.S.-China trade and technology war dominates today’s headlines. The struggle for economic supremacy has resulted in high tariffs and broken technology supply chains, impacting both global businesses and consumers. What can we expect as tensions increase? How will these changing geopolitics continue to impact global business, technology innovation and more? 

At Swell 2019 Ambassador Chan Heng Chee, one of Singapore’s most distinguished diplomats, takes the stage to address these questions. She will examine the current U.S. and China political environment and the new reality that will unfold for all nations and global businesses amid political uncertainty. 

Chan understands from first-hand experience the impact of strained global politics. She began her 16-year tenure as Singapore’s Ambassador to the U.S. during a tense period in the two nations’ history, following disagreements around the sentencing of an American teenager for vandalism in Singapore. Under her leadership, bilateral relationships between the countries improved dramatically. Singapore and the U.S. forged new agreements around defense, security, and trade, including the signing of the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (USSFTA) and the Strategic Framework Agreement.

She also has deep expertise in economic development in Singapore and, more broadly, across Asia-Pacific. Today, Chan serves as Ambassador-at-large within the Singapore Foreign Ministry where she chairs Singapore University’s Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, and is a Member of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights. She has received a number of awards including the Inaugural Asia Society Outstanding Diplomatic Achievement Award and the U.S. Navy Distinguished Public Service Award.

As the world watches and waits for a U.S.-China resolution, Swell 2019 offers an ideal forum to explore its potentially far-reaching impact. Ambassador Chan lends her unique expertise on this rapidly evolving issue, and keynote speakers—Dr. Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, and Kamal Quadir, CEO of bKash—discuss how today’s technological advancement brings economic opportunities and financial inclusion to emerging markets. 

Don’t miss your chance to be a part of this important international dialog. Swell 2019 is Ripple’s invite-only customer event in Singapore, Nov. 7-8. It brings together the world’s most trusted voices across financial services, payments, technology and policy to explore the new reality unfolding in global payments—and why it matters.

[ad_2]

Source link

Announcing Swell 2019 Keynote Speakers

[ad_1]

Today, we are thrilled to announce Dr. Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and Distinguished Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, and Kamal Quadir, CEO of bKash as our 2019 Swell keynote speakers.

The invite-only conference—hosted in Singapore, Nov. 7-8—brings together the world’s most trusted voices across financial services, payments, technology and policy to explore the new reality unfolding in global payments—and why it matters. Applications to attend are now open. 

Swell’s opening keynote Dr. Raghuram Rajan is the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth. Previously, he was the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and earlier Dr. Rajan was the Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Dr. Rajan is considered a key visionary behind India’s early adoption of mobile banking. His brainchild, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) that launched in 2016, is revolutionizing peer-to-peer payments and helping usher in India’s migration to a more digital society. 

Our closing keynote, Kamal Quadir, is a practitioner who focuses his efforts on technology that brings about social progress by enabling people to advance economically. He is the CEO of bKash, a digital financial service that offers millions of unbanked and underbanked people access to financial services through basic cell phones or smartphones in Bangladesh. Earlier Quadir founded CellBazaar, a communication company that has introduced a cellphone-based electronic marketplace for developing countries.

Advancements in mobile technology are bringing financial inclusion and economic opportunities to emerging markets, but digital transformation at scale requires thoughtful regulation that protects consumers while fostering innovation. At a time when groundbreaking technology and regulation were on a potential collision course, Dr. Rajan and Quadir’s work ushering in a digital society brings to mind the efforts from our 2018 Swell keynote, former President Bill Clinton. As the internet took flight in the 1990’s, President Clinton worked to establish programs that would bridge the “digital divide” and bring new technology to underserved communities around the world. 

We are at a similar moment in time. Today, digital assets and blockchain technology are impacting daily life. Financial institutions can deliver on the promise of instant, reliable cross-border payments—offering a better, lower-cost service to millions around the world. 

This year, Swell includes a bold roster of payments experts and industry luminaries to discuss trends, successful blockchain implementations and real-world use cases for digital assets. Our speakers will share learnings about how today’s leading financial institutions are meeting growing customer demands for better, more accessible global payments.

Now is the time to change how the world moves money. The future that leaders across financial services, payments and technology industries have been envisioning for almost a decade is now here. What can we expect as this new reality unfolds? Find out at Swell.
Be sure to check Ripple Insights for updates. We will be announcing the agenda and even more speakers in the coming weeks. See you in Singapore!

[ad_2]

Source link