The long-awaited moment for Ripple enthusiasts is here: the company confirmed that it’s ready to roll out xRapid payment platform.
The company’s real-time settlement software is designed to use XRP in order to provide on-demand liquidity and also increase the speed of cross-border payments.
xRapid steps in production phase in the upcoming months
According to Cory Johnson, Ripple’s chief strategist, it looks like xRapid will officially step in the production phase sometime during the next four months.
“We’ve seen several successful xRapid pilots already, and as we move the product from beta to production later this year, these exchange partners will allow us to provide financial institutions with the comfort and assurance that their payments will move seamlessly between different currencies,” Johnson says.
Ripple and more of its current partners have been already testing xRapid in a series of cross-border pilot tests all over the world.
It’s essential to mention on test between the US and Mexico in which Ripple said the financial institutions that have used xRapid were able to save 40-70% on what they would have typically paid for foreign exchange brokers.
This means somewhere between $12 to $21 billion in savings on a yearly basis.
Ten companies are interested in xRapid
Ten companies have already publicly announced test pilots that utilize the platform, with three planning to fully implement xRapid.
The companies testing xRapid include the following:
- MoneyGram
- Currencies Direct
- Mercury FX
- Western Union
- IDT
- Cambridge Global Payments
- Viamericas
The companies using xRapid are the following:
- SBI Virtual Currencies
- Cuallix
- Zip Remit
Mercury FX reported that its pilot test of xRapid showed a fantastic speed of XRP.
Western Union triggers a change in Ripple’s approach
On the other hand, Western Union reported that xRapid is still too expensive to be used for improving its business model.
Ripple’s senior vice president of product Asheesh Birla announced a shift in strategy as a response to Western Union saying that they are a massive company that has been around for a long time.
“For Western Union to take advantage of xRapid they would have to move all their volume over to something like xRapid because they already have fixed costs and optimized liquidity flows. So right now, we’ve reoriented our target customer on upstarts, payment providers.”