Euro Exim Bank, a London-based bank has recently tested Ripple’s xRapid in order to process cross-border payments. The Bank majorly focuses on providing financial services for export and import companies. So as of now, the financial service provider has the first bank to announce that it used XRP for cross-border payments.

On Tuesday Ripple announced that Euro Exim Bank, including JNFX, SendFriend, Transpaygo and FTCS, would be using XRP for cross-border transactions. The list also included that Ahli Bank of Kuwait, BFC Bahrain, ConnectPay, GMT, WorldCom Finance, Olympia Trust Company, Pontual/USEND, and Rendimento have signed for RippleNet.

According to the announcement, Ripple now has more than 200 customers worldwide. Mr. Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple said that the company is now collaborating with two-three customers per week, and in 2018, there has been more than 350 percent growth in customers sending live payments. The CEO said that the company has begun to see more customers flip the switch and leverage XRP for on-demand liquidity.

Kaushik Punjani, Director of Euro Exim Bank said his bank’s customers have traditionally been restricted from settling transactions quickly and cost efficiently. According to him, the issue extends to both major corporations and individual remitters.

Mr. Punjani said:

“Working collaboratively with Ripple and selected counterparts, we have designed, tested and are implementing both xCurrent and xRapid in record time, and we look forward to the benefits these will bring our customers.”

David Lighton, CEO and co-founder of remittance service SendFriend, spoke about the focus on cheap cross-border payments as advantages of using xRapid. According to him, a distributed ledger-based solution, leveraging Ripple’s XRP asset allows its customers to settle transactions in real time, with lower capital requirements and lower costs. He also added that he and his company is so proud to partner with Ripple to offer our customers cheaper, faster, payments to the developing world.