Ripple’s SVP of Global Operation, Eric van Miltenburg, has said the firm is looking up to entering the African market, fully.
In a conversation with Jim Kim, the Ripple executive said he was happy about Ripple’s foray into the Philippines, South America, and some other territories, but noted that the enterprise blockchain company was looking to “get the first set of markets right,” before entering Africa with full force.
“I wouldn’t be surprised, as you look into the next year and beyond, that we do more in Africa to address that market.”
Ripple already has a partnership with Flutterwave, a Nigerian payment startup that recently collaborated with Binance.
Flutterwave received investments from the likes of Mastercard and some other investors. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) granted an approval-in-principle (AIP) to the firm recently.
Businesses are eyeing Africa these days. Recently, Opay, a payment firm based in Africa got a $120 million investment to expand its business in the region.
As well, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is planning to relocate to Africa. The entrepreneur said blockchain and cryptocurrency are going to do better in Africa.
Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse: We are Opening Financial Institutions to Opportunities offered by New Technology
CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse also spoke during the conversation with Jim Kim on how his firm is redesigning and reworking the remittance industry, putting it straight that Ripple is opening financial institutions to opportunities offered by the new technology.
Garlinghouse, in his conversation with Jim Kim, expatiated on the importance of Ripple’s xRapid, now rebranded as On-Demand Liquidity (ODL), and xCurrent.
“We wanted to bring banks, financial institutions, into the opportunities represented by these new technologies. And you know frankly, starting with the deep end, I will say that the deep end is going all the way into using digital assets to solve some of these problems as opposed to gradually working them into that.”
In his elevator statement about Ripple, Brad said the firm is an enterprise software company selling software to banks. The firm produces remittance software allowing banks to send funds across the globe seamlessly at reduced cost.
Ripple, from the beginning, has the idea of internet of value –how to send money to different countries in the same manner information is sent in a twinkle of an eye. Ripple is reworking the remittance industry and looking to onboarding more banks.
Brad said Ripple is working on bringing in more legacy institutions as the blockchain firm continues to compete with SWIFT, which has been in the remittance world for close to 50 years.
Brad restated during the interview that SWIFT remains a “one-way messaging framework”.
He said when payment is executed through SWIFT, the only means available to know the recipient received the fund is when he sends a message about the fund.
Brad noted that it is easy to do away with the errors in SWIFT just by using better technology, that is, Ripple’s xCurrent.
In comparison, Garlinghouse said an archaic cross-border remittance system like SWIFT works like a “postcard” that requires many days to deliver but Ripple was working on enhancing the system to increase the delivery time.
“What we have been is really taken that very rudimentary conversation infrastructure that was built decades ago and said, let’s have a two-way messaging framework.”
