Ahead of the SWIFT’s Sibos conference in Sydney Australia, many people are asserting that Ripple (XRP) needs to partner SWIFT, while some are saying the rivalry needs to continue until a master is selected.
Either Ripple partners or continues to rival SWIFT, there is no doubt that cross-border payments is witnessing a revolution that is worth writing about.
After seeing Ripple’s efficiently priced payments tool courtesy of the almighty blockchain technology, SWIFT responded by launching GPII, an innovation that makes it easy to achieve same day fund remittance, payment tracking and upfront pricing.
In this article, I looked at the two solutions, and what the society stands to benefit.
Before the advent of Ripple, cross-border payment structure is devised in such a way that payment has to go through an archaic banking system that has been rendered inefficient due to regulators stiff policies.
The long chain and problem termed bureaucracy witnessed during remittance process is disheartening because nothing less than six players are involved.
Beneficiary, beneficiary bank, beneficiary bank’s correspondents, payer’s bank correspondent, payer’s bank, and payer, all have to be involved at the same time, resulting in slow and costly dealing. On many occasion, banks delay the money due to the lengthy time it takes to achieve the transfer.
During the process, countless charges are withdrawn from the payment. This has been the reason many of those who do cross-border payment almost every time and see Amazon deliver goods faster than banks campaign for a Venmo or PayPal-like instant payment.
Ripple (XRP): Disrupting Cross-border Payment With Ease
With Ripple’s cross-border remittance tools, the industry is completely witness disruption beyond bank’s potential. In fact, the tool comes with automated best pricing, almost instant payments, with liquidity and credit risk battled resulting in a reduced bank costs.
It is important that regulators see a reason love Ripple, for the fact that almost instant transfers lower liquidity and credit risks.
In another sense, Ripple deploys industry standard ISO and MT messaging that makes directly and multilaterally connection which prevent loss of corporate data in the payment messages as easy as anything.
Another thing that makes Ripple good is that it is focused on banks. It is the banks that connect to the provision made available by Ripple.
The advantage in this is that customers who are always glued to banks continue to do so, in the same line, regulators too trust banks, indicating that they will continue to trust Ripple.
Ripple Tools
While Ripple just launched another tools called xRapid which uses XRP token, its other cross-border tools (xVia, xCurrent) use blockchain technology as well. Through Ripple’s Inter Ledger Protocol (ILP), approved bank ledgers are connected. When any bank needs to make cross-border payment, they connect to Ripple network the same way they connect to the SWIFT network.
Then, in a twinkle of an eye, the network processes their payment and perfect it at the same time with detail information exchange and reasonable currency conversion.
However, those archaic system do not provides adequate information and are longer than sending postal orders.
SWIFT’s GPII: An Overview
SWIFT understands that Ripple is definitely a challenge, it therefore unveiled Global Payments Innovation Initiative (GPII) which uses the present archaic SWIFT messaging and correspondent banking system.
There is nothing new about GPII, rather than the fact that it charges banks to behave more reasonably in cross-border payments. It also has room for payment data and tracking which oversees the obedience to these newly set rules.
The rules are contained in the service level agreement (SLA) made available to banks to sign. As confirmed, the SLA does not support bank floats, unnecessary charges and delays.
To make payment processes outstanding, SWIFT also developed an observer tool that makes it easy for other banks to keep watch on others in case any of them failed to comply with the signed SLA. It also innovated payment tracker to keep watch on the payment’s progress.
At the moment, the system may not work perfectly, some banks are internally slow which makes it hard for them to perfect payment on time.
Although banks may first see SWIFT’s GPII as an option, they may later understand how it is not different from the previous process with time.
Ripple (XRP) vs SWIFT’s GPII or Ripple Partners SWIFT?
No doubt, Ripple’s provisions are too outstanding to be contested with. The startup has cheaper and faster cross-border remittance tools than SWIFT. However, if Ripple partners SWIFT, cross-border payment is going to be seamless and cheaper. Exactly what we all are expecting in the remittance world. If the two firms co-exist rather than contest, it is definitely a plus. The good news we expect at the Sibos event is that Ripple partners SWIFT.
About The Writer: Larry Morphy Works In One Of Asia’s Recognised bank. He has been a keen observer of cross-border payment world.
Disclaimer: This is an opinion, it does not reflect the mind of Today’s Gazette or any of our affiliates. Please treat it as is.
