World-famous credit card company AMEX has been on RippleNet since Nov 2016 and has seen great things across its UK/US payments corridor.

We found it quite interesting when to hear AMEX talking SWIFT vs Ripple and the future of cross-border payments we had to look into it.

Ripple’s cross-border payments product offers an alternative to SWIFT for moving payments between banks & payment providers in different countries. SWIFT cross-border payments via the correspondent banking system are regarded as slow, often taking days to complete. It is also hard to track progress & determine whether the money has been received, payments often require manual intervention by banks American Express

SWIFT has been settling cross-border payments for 40 years but change is desperately needed as banks say the system is slow, too expensive and dated.

The payments company who settles up to $5 trillion daily know their main competitor is Ripple and that their time is coming to an end.

Mike Faden continued to say with SWIFT, costs can be high and unpredictable because higher power banks on the chain can add charges.

Sometimes the payer of such fees and deductions may not even be informed and will not find out until long after the payments have completed.

In response to these pressures, banks are adopting new approaches designed to accelerate cross-border payments while reducing cost and increasing transparency. Today, experts say there are two primary competing initiatives Ripple cross-border payments and SWIFT GPI American Express

SWIFT’s GPI system sounds perfect on the face of it but as Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse points out, it still only works for the few at the top.

The elite banks take the cream from the top while payments complete if lower-class banks are not in the ‘banking club’ transactions can cost them millions.

Relic of the Past

As THE central banking payments system for 40 years, SWIFT won’t go down without a fight and have been fixing the issues Ripple has made so public.

Caught with pants down wouldn’t be too unfair, in the days of horse and cart people said, it works why do we need cars? We all know how that went down.

RippleTech completes inter-bank cross-border payment transfers in seconds. At the same time, SWIFT is working to accelerate payments over its own network with SWIFT GPI, which promises same-day cross-border transfers, transparent fees, & payment tracking. Mike Faden – AMEX

In today’s world SWIFT are finding customer expectations are getting increasingly higher due to factors like the increase in real-time domestic payments.

You could say the growth of E-commerce demands a faster, more reliable system, five days completion compared to seconds makes Ripple a no brainer.

Ripple’s Into Waves

SWIFT GPI launched in 2017 to speed up payments between banks but costs are rising with anti-money laundering rules and KYC regulations.

As Brad Garlinghouse puts it beautifully, why speed up a horse and cart when you can build a Ferarri.

How can banks like Santander compete effectively with say Paypal, Amazon, and Facebook, it will not be from settlement times measured in days or costs measured in $15 plus dollars, it will be in seconds & pennies per transaction (like Ripple’s XRP) Brad Garlinghouse

In an interview at the start of 2019, Brad Garlinghouse actually met SWIFT’s CEO on stage in Paris where they shared their opinions candidly. Shown below.

The Ripple CEO has been involved in tech companies like Yahoo, even predicting Yahoo’s demise with his ‘peanut butter manifesto’.

Back in 2009, Garlinghouse was head of AOL Silicon Valley where he had disagreements with his superiors about coming changes in the internet.

Changes that eventually happened and Brad was right yet again, now at the helm of something truly transformative, is he right again? Its fairly likely I’d say.

Presenter: “You have in the past said Ripple will take over SWIFT can you elaborate” B. Garlinghouse, smiling: “Well I have also said there are ways we can possibly work with SWIFT too…” B Garlinghouse, Looks to SWIFT CEO Smiling – “Ripple are hiring…”

Further Reading