London-based Finastra — the third-largest financial services technology firm in the world — has partnered with Ripple to grant its customers access to the RippleNet blockchain network.

As reported by the Fintech Times on Oct. 16, the cooperation between the two firms will see Ripple’s over 200 existing clients reciprocally access Finastra’s extensive banking network, which includes 48 of the top 50 banks globally.

Partnership with a financial software “global behemoth”

Finastra was formed in 2017 after a merger between Misys and D+H, with the development hailed at the time as the establishment of “a global behemoth in the market for financial software.”

According to the Fintech Times report, Finastra customers and existing RippleNet partners will be able to transact cross-border with end-to-end tracking and transparent oversight of fees, delivery time and status.

Customers will be hosted on Ripple’s cloud solution in order to improve speed, as well as having the option to use Ripple’s XRP-powered On-Demand Liquidity solution, which purportedly offers a 3-second settlement time for international payments.

In a statement, Riteesh Singh — Senior Vice President, FMS, Finastra — said that Finastra’s collaboration with Ripple reflects the company’s “belief that the future of finance is open.”

He added that the use of blockchain technology would be of particular benefit for clients in jurisdictions where the costs of corresponding banking are high.

High-profile clients, yet community controversies persist

This August, PNC — the United States’ eighth-largest bank, with almost $400 billion in assets — became the country’s first to start using the RippleNet blockchain network for cross-border payments.

With the XRP token’s price nonetheless continuing to lag, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has responded to a host of Ripple-related controversies in recent interviews, telling Morgan Creek Digital Assets co-founder Anthony Pompliano on Oct. 9 that the company’s transparency had “opened us up to attack.”

In a nod to the ongoing concerns over Ripple’s handling of XRP token sales, Garlinghouse emphasized that Ripple sells XRP at 10 basis points of daily market volume noting that 99.9% of XRP volume is not connected to the company’s sales.