Ripple Labs is thrilled to have signed its first two U.S. banks to use the Ripple protocol for real-time, cross-border payments.

Cross River Bank, an independent transaction bank based in New Jersey, and CBW Bank, a century-old institution founded in Kansas, join Fidor Bank on the Ripple network, which continues to grow.

Both banks are excited to leverage the technology in order to provide greater efficiency and innovation to their customers.

“Our business customers expect banking to move at the speed of the Web, but with the security and confidence of the traditional financial system,” said Gilles Gade, president and CEO of Cross River Bank.

“Ripple will help make that a reality, enabling our customers to instantly transfer funds internationally while meeting all compliance requirements and payments rules. We are excited to be amongst the very first banks in the U.S. to deploy Ripple as a faster, more affordable and compliant payment rail for our customers.”

“Today’s banks offer the equivalent of 300-year-old paper ledgers converted to an electronic form – a digital skin on an antiquated transaction process,” said Suresh Ramamurthi, chairman and CTO of CBW Bank.

“Ripple addresses the structural problem of payments as IP-based settlement infrastructure that powers the exchange of any types of value. We’ll now be one of the first banks in the world to offer customers a reliable, compliant, safe and secure way to instantly send and receive money internationally. As part of our integration with Ripple, we are rolling out Yantra’s cross-border, transaction-specific compliance, risk-scoring, monitoring and risk management system.”

But these new partnerships aren’t just great for Cross River Bank and CBW Bank customers, it’s great for everyone in the U.S. and Europe by essentially opening up a corridor between ACH and SEPA. Any U.S. bank can now use Cross River or CBW Bank as a correspondent to move funds in real-time to any other institution in Europe via Germany-based Fidor.

The deals will also help expand liquidity and trade volume on the protocol and generally improve the network effects of the system—which will continue to make Ripple more attractive for both market makers and developers.

Ultimately, this announcement is the culmination of many months of hard work and further validation for the Ripple Labs vision. The most exciting part? This is only just the beginning.

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