SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ripple, the global provider of financial settlement solutions, today announced the opening of its European headquarters to better serve growing bank demand in the region. The office will be located in London, and led by newly appointed Managing Director of Europe, Daniel Aranda. New hire and industry veteran Patricia Pittomvils will join him as Sales Director of Europe.

“We’re excited to continue growing our global presence by establishing roots in London, one of the most important financial centers of the world,” said Ripple CEO and co-founder Chris Larsen. “After establishing our APAC subsidiary last year, we’ve seen tremendous traction in Asia, leading to the recent creation of SBI Ripple Asia, and we’re looking forward to similarly rapid growth in Europe starting with this new office.”

With the opening of the London office, Managing Director Daniel Aranda is relocating from Ripple’s San Francisco headquarters to lead the company’s European presence. Aranda was among Ripple’s first employees and has served as a key member of the company’s business development team since 2013, helping shape the overall company strategy and build the customer pipeline. Today, the majority of Ripple’s current partners are based in Europe, such as Santander and Fidor Bank, and the company continues to see strong customer interest regionally for its cross-currency settlement solutions, the only enterprise blockchain products available in the market.

“The European region is unique as an established global financial center that is leading the industry in embracing new technologies and modernizing its banking infrastructure. We see enormous potential here,” Aranda said. “European banks are proving to be first adopters of distributed financial technology and, in particular, Ripple’s solutions.”

In his new role, Aranda will continue to engage with leading banks, regulators and central banks to support and develop Ripple’s adoption, as well as build a local sales and implementation team.

The first key hire for this new office is Sales Director Patricia Pittomvils, who brings nearly 25 years of experience in banking operations to the role. Throughout her career Pittomvils spent more than 10 years focused on global payments infrastructure at companies including Clear2Pay, CGI, Fundtech, Tieto and VocaLink, the UK’s legacy payment infrastructure. Earlier in her career, she spent 10 years as regional sales manager at SWIFT. As sales director of Europe, Pittomvils will apply her deep knowledge and hands-on experience in the payments space to build and strengthen relationships with new and existing customers in the region.

“Throughout my career I’ve learned the ins-and-outs of banking and payments, and I’ve spent decades working either directly for or with the long-established providers like VocaLink and SWIFT,” Pittomvils said. “I’m excited to apply my knowledge of the best and worst of our existing payments infrastructures, and help move the industry forward with Ripple’s technology, which can vastly improve the fundamental way money moves around the world.”

Ripple now has offices in three countries, and in four cities across the world including San Francisco, New York, London and Sydney to serve its dozens of bank customers globally.

About Ripple

Ripple provides global financial settlement solutions to ultimately enable the world to exchange value like it already exchanges information – giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV). Ripple solutions lower the total cost of settlement by enabling banks to transact directly, without correspondent banks, and with real-time certainty of settlement. Banks around the world are partnering with Ripple to improve their cross-border payment offerings, and to join the growing, global network of financial institutions and market makers laying the foundation for the Internet of Value.

Ripple is a venture-backed startup with offices in San Francisco, New York, London and Sydney. As an industry advocate for the Internet of Value, Ripple sits on the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force Steering Committee and co-chairs the W3C’s Web Payments Working Group.