National Banks of Egypt and Bangladesh Join Ripple’s Blockchain-powered RippleNet Platform

Banks across the globe are making collective effort to implement distributed ledger systems at their end. In the latest developments, the national banks of Egypt and Bangladesh have recently entered a partnership with the U.S.-based blockchain startup Ripple to use the latter’s blockchain-powered RippleNet facility for cheaper and faster cross-border transactions.

National Bank of Egypt (NBE’s) chairman Hisham Okasha said that this partnership will bring a “new and important tributary” to receive remittances from different correspondents through Ripple’s blockchain payment systems.

The NBE will be joining 300 other banking and financial institutions across the globe who are part of the RippleNet payments platform. Dalia El-Baz, vice chairman of NBE also stated that using RippleNet will help to better address their client requirements and offer them all the benefits of the changing trends in financial technology.

Similar to NBE, Bangladesh-based Bank of Asia has also entered in a partnership with Ripple to use its RippleNet financial services network. Bank of Asia’s head of foreign remittances Khandaker Mujahidul Islam said that he has been working with the institution on implementing Ripple’s cross-border payments system xCurrent since March 2018.

He states his job includes integrating the bank’s infrastructure with Ripple network and slowing moving the banks’ customers on blockchain-based networks thereby facilitating real-time remittance transfers.

Despite the poor show by XRP, Ripple has managed to onboard global clients for adoption its blockchain-based solutions. However, XRP has nothing to do with the RippleNet’s xCurrent payments solution. The xCurrent payments solution uses Ripple’s blockchain infrastructure to facilitate instant cross-border payments. The solutions doesn’t involve using the XRP cryptocurrency.

For this, Ripple has developed another XRP-based payments solution called the xRapid. This solution uses the XRP tokens for providing on-demand liquidity for instant cross-border payment settlements.

While Ripple has a lot of clients supporting and using its xCurrent payments solutions, its XRP-based xRapid has yet to gather enough steam in the market.