Ripple, XRP, is proving to become a cross-border specialist with another significant partnership with a top bank yesterday, 19 September 2018. The announcement was a tie-up with PNC Bank, which is noted as one of the top 10 banks in the United States.

Ripple secures another partnership with a top 10 US bank

PNC Financial Services Group is a bank which is based in Pittsburgh and operates in 19 states with 2,459 branches. It is currently ranked as the 9th on the list of largest banks in the United States by assets which stand at $380.7 billion, 5th largest in terms of branches and the 6th largest by deposits.

PNC to onboard xCurrent

PNC Bank will use make use of Ripple’s xCurrent which helps clients in the U.S receive payments from any country in the world. The bank will benefit as the transactions much quicker and cheaper compared to traditional cross-border methods. The pilot phase has completed successfully. PNC now looks to ensure xCurrent is used immediately to benefit its customers.

PNC which is a respectable bank utilising Ripple’s technology means that there is a future direction for Ripple’s technology as it looks like a long-term advantage.

A blend of xCurrent and xRapid

The Senior Vice President of Product, Asheesh Birla spoke about the current xCurrent product and the future use of xRapid.

“With PNC, the idea is to get a few corridors lit up with xCurrent … When they’re ready to start talking about emerging markets, we’ll introduce them to xRapid. We’re working to get them started with xCurrent so it’s not a completely new feature to move to xRapid.”

xCurrent solves the messaging problem for payments between parties while xRapid is a solution to the liquidity problem by selling payments with the XRP digital asset. As Twitter user ‘Vince from Jamla’ correctly pointed out

Read very carefully! pic.twitter.com/uTXx7J8Ilb — Vince From Jamla (@TrueSchoolVince) September 19, 2018

XRP is not currently being used for transactions due to xRapid not being active. However, it shows a shift from SWIFT to Ripple solutions for cross-border transactions. This shows an increased adoption of Blockchain in the banking sector.

RippleNet continues to grow

RippleNet is growing successfully with over 100 members in 40 different countries. It’s present on six different continents including Africa and Asia.

On September 18, 2018, the National Commercial Bank (NCB) which is Saudi Arabia’s first established bank was the latest to join the RippleNet. With over 5 million customers in NCB, it hopes to connect financial institutions in North America and Asia.

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