Ripple Blockchain Network Ads 5 New Clients across 4 Countries

The Ripple blockchain network has received yet another boost, after Latin America largest bank by market cap, Itaú Unibanco, Brazil confirmed it will use it to process cross-border payments and remittances.

The bank joins Singapore refinance service provider, InstaReM and Indian commercial bank Induslnd that have already adopted Ripple xCurrent to settle payments involving international financial service providers. SBI Holdings, one of Japan’s leading commercial banks is another high profile financial institution that has given the Ripple blockchain a nod.

Remittance service providers have already started to use Ripple’s xVia solution to process payments on the Ripple blockchain. The financial institutions are using the Ripple blockchain to lower operating costs when it comes to processing payments between banks and institutions.

Blockchain technology has simplified the process of sending and receiving money abroad, both on the efficiency front as well as on costs.

“Whether it’s a teacher in the U.S. sending money home to his family in Brazil, or a small business owner in India […] it’s imperative that we connect the world’s financial institutions into a payments system that works for their customers, not against them,” said Patrick Griffin, Ripple’s head of business development.

Ripple has already partnered some of the world’s largest remittance providers such as MoneyGram’s as it looks to streamline the process of sending and receiving money across borders via blockchain.  The end game is to build an ecosystem and community of major remittance services providers to ensure people can send, both small and large, sums of money at reduced costs via blockchain.

The biggest challenge that the company faces is bringing remittance service providers together and ensuring there is a decentralized and peer-to-peer platform between them for sending and receiving money.

RippleNet has already brought together large-scale remittance service providers in Singapore China and other countries as part of the latest drive. InstaReM, for instance, handles more than 500,000 transactions a day, initiated by customers from over 60 countries.

Taking into considerations the turmoil in the cryptocurrency space, Ripple is looking to secure its future around the underlying blockchain technology. However, for it to be successful, it needs to solidify partnerships created last year through increased transaction volumes and user activity.  Increased transaction volumes could allow it to ink more deals with banks, most of which are still on the fence on the adoption of blockchain technology for processing international payments.