Ripple xRapid Pilot Programs’ Results Disclose 70% Savings in Payment Fees

Blockchain company Ripple has disclosed the results of its xRapid pilot programs which involved the Ripple (XRP) currency. The firm published the results on Thursday alongside the announcement that the project generated as much as 70%  savings in payment fees.

Ripple revealed that the companies that participated in the pilot program for the xRapid platform managed to achieve between 40 and 70 percent transaction savings. The participants also stated that they experienced massive improvements in the transaction speeds. Transactions using regular means would take around two or three days but the xRapid pilot programs allowed them to carry out transactions in almost two minutes.

XRapid is the liquidity solution that Ripple has been developing for its real-time gross settlement system which is powered by blockchain technology. The company designed the solution as a tool that will be used to facilitate the transfer of fiat currencies between banks and financial institutions.  Ripple announced numerous partnerships over the past few months with companies that have participated in the pilot program for XRapid and also in different projects that do not involve XRP.

Asheesh Birla, the head of Product at Ripple revealed that the firm has been evaluating seven pilot projects and that the results for all the projects were quite similar. He also stated that the companies that were involved in the pilot programs for XRapid were quite impressed by the speed at which the transactions were carried out.

The pilot tests evaluated payments between Mexico and the U.S. Currently existing systems usually require banks and financial institutions to involve pre-funded bank accounts in Mexico, otherwise, they are forced to go through the banking networks of the banks of the other side. The problem with this approach is that it ends up being very costly.

Paul Dwyer, the head of the Viamericas money remitting company stated that the pilot programs demonstrate the role that cryptocurrencies will play in the future especially in the banking industry. Digital currencies will help banks to overcome some of the structural inefficiencies that exist in the current settlement infrastructure.

Different banks all over the world have been working on implementing blockchain-powered systems to improve their services. Santander was the first bank in the world to adopt an international payment network powered by blockchain technology that is built on Ripple’s infrastructure.