A Lookback At Ripple’s Swell 2018

The second annual Swell by Ripple customer conference came to a close on October 3rd. In the two days of the event e world’s leading experts in policy, payments and technology converged in San Francisco for 14 dynamic sessions, featuring 32 speakers, on the future of payments. The event also provided an occasion for Ripple’s customers to meet, share and establish new corridors on RippleNet.

Let us take a look back at the two days of the memorable conference.

Day One

Opening with President Bill Clinton’s keynote address, day one of Swell highlighted comments by CEO Brad Garlinghouse on the Internet of Value and Banco Santander’s Head of Innovation Ed Metzger on One Pay FX, the first mobile app for cross-border payments using RippleNet.

Policy and regulation also were a major focus in two back-to-back sessions featuring Honorable Sunil Sabharwal, former alternate executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), discussing global regulatory policy and central banks on their approach to blockchain and digital assets.

Day one also featured exciting Ripple news: xRapid is commercially available and will go into production with three financial institutions.

Day Two

Ripple published the first Blockchain in Payments Report during the keynote session featuring Chief Market Strategist Cory Johnson alongside Celent Senior Analyst Alenka Grealish. Most notable among the findings: mainstream blockchain adoption is at an important tipping point.

The rest of the day was packed with memorable on-stage moments, including talks led by customers Siam Commercial Bank’s Colin Dinn, TransferGo’s CEO Daumantas Dvilinskas and InstaReM’s Prajit Nanu and BeeTech’s Fernando Pavani. All highlighted impressive results from their use of Ripple’s blockchain technology in cross-border payments.

A dynamic discussion on the future of digital asset adoption featured representatives from Remitr, Bittrex and IDT Corporation. The panelists pointed out that cross-border payments are likely what will inspire the mainstream use of digital assets and that regulatory compliance was a crucial component for adoption.

Evaluating the future of payments was also a key topic for speakers. A session led by former eBay executive RJ Pittman offered some insight into why improving payments infrastructure will provide serious growth opportunities for the entire industry.

An impressive panel on implementing the adoption of innovative technology featured Tokunboh Ishmael, Amy Radin, and Ben Braybn and emphasized the importance that new technology like blockchain can have on developing economies.

The finale of Swell 2018 was the Blockchain Innovator Awards ceremony. Cuallix, InstaReM, Siam Commercial Bank, Banco Santander, TransferGO, and the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority were all honored for their achievements over the last year.

In case you want to check out any of these sessions. then check out our full-length videos on Ripple’s YouTube channel.