On Thursday (16 August 2018), Ripple gave its “gold standard” seal of approval (for making xRapid payments) to three cryptocurrency exchanges around the world (one in the U.S., one in Mexico, and the other in the Philippines).

xRapid, Ripple’s solution for fast, reliable, and inexpensive cross-border payments, uses the digital asset XRP to offer on-demand liquidity, which dramatically lowers costs for making real-time payments to/in emerging markets.

In the announcement posted on its “Insights” blog a short time ago, Ripple says that for xRapid to be most successful, “there needs to be a healthy ecosystem of digital asset exchange partners around the world” that allow alow quick and efficient conversion of one fiat currency to XRP at the source end and conversion of XRP to another fiat currency at the destination end.

Today, Ripple named its first three “preferred” crypto exchanges:

Bittrex (for xRapid transactions that move through US Dollars)

Bitso (for xRapid transactions that move through Mexican Pesos)

Coins.ph (for xRapid transactions that move through Philippine Pesos)

Ripple explained how an xRapid payment from U.S. to Mexico would work (using Bittrex at the U.S. side and Bitso at the Mexico side):

“A financial institution, that has an account with Bittrex, initiates a payment in US dollars via xRapid which is instantly converted into XRP on Bittrex.”

“The payment amount in XRP is settled over the XRP Ledger.”

“Bitso – through its Mexican Peso liquidity pool – instantly converts the XRP into fiat, which is then settled into a destination bank account.”

Cory Johnson, Chief Market Strategist at Ripple said:

“Bittrex is one of the biggest names in digital asset trading in the U.S. The same goes for Bitso in Mexico and Coins.ph in the Philippines. That makes today’s announcement an important development for xRapid. We’ve seen several successful xRapid pilots already, and as we move the product from beta to production later this year, these exchange partners will allow us to provide financial institutions with the comfort and assurance that their payments will move seamlessly between different currencies.”

Later, Johnson explained via a tweet why for naming its initial set of preferred partners Ripple had chosen Mexico and the Philippines:

Why did we choose, of all countries, preferred partners in Mexico and the Philippines? The four largest incoming remittance countries (two of which shun crypto businesses) are: India, China, Mexico and the Philippines. https://t.co/rHynmxoZ2w #XRP — Cory Johnson (@CoryTV) August 16, 2018

Ron Hose, CEO of South East Asia’s e-wallet and financial services company, Coins.ph, had this to say:

“We are excited to be partnering with Ripple to bring the benefits of blockchain technology to cross-border payments, making sending money home more affordable for 10M+ overseas filipino workers.”

It seems that Ripple has selected these three exchanges because of their large XRP holdings, which means that they can provide higher levels of liquidity. And by endorsing such exchanges, it is able to in crease their liquidity even further.

Featured Image Credit: Image Courtesy of Ripple