Ripple enthusiasts can enjoy some fresh news about the company’s products. During an Ask Me Anything session, Ripple’s Senior Vice President of Product Asheesh Birla discussed xRapid-related issues.
xRapid is Ripple’s platform that’s designed to use XRP in order to offer users on-demand liquidity and enhance the speed of cross-border payments.
Western Union stated just recently that xRapid is still too expensive and Birla made sure to address this as well while explaining how this is affecting Ripple’s direction in the future.
“The thing with Western Union is they’re such a massive company that’s been around for longer than most payment companies out there. Really, 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,” he said.
Birla also said that Ripple reoriented their target customer on upstarts and payment providers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr-FekSCons
Rolling out rapid and RippleNet plans
Regarding Ripple’s plans to roll out xRapid, Birla explained that he hopes to launch the product by the end of the year but he did not mention a precise date.
Regarding RippleNet which is Ripple’s network of banks and payment providers that use the blockchain tech in order to process payments, it seems that Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz believes that by increasing volume and getting more and more companies to use xRapid and XRP is their main target at the moment.
“I think one very, very important thing is getting volume on RippleNet – getting transaction flow where we want it to be. More corridors, more deployment. I think having that transaction flow – as candidates to be bridges with XRP – is tremendously important to the company,” he explained.
He also said that getting more partnerships is vital and you can watch the video above in order to find out all the details regarding the plans for Ripple’s products.