Ripple Labs is thrilled to announce a partnership with Earthport, a regulated financial institution whose cross-border platform represents the largest open network for global bank payments.

The London-based firm, which has offices in New York and Dubai, will integrate the Ripple protocol alongside its existing payments network. Through this global partnership, Earthport’s customers will be able to leverage Ripple’s friction-free cross-border payments solution and benefit from lower liquidity management costs, all while maintaining the robust standards of compliance that regulators expect.

“We constantly evaluate new technologies to reduce costs and delays associated with global bank payments for our clients, but require these innovations to meet our high, exacting standards for compliance,” said Hank Uberoi, CEO of Earthport. “Ripple is a new technology and, once integrated in our payments service could bring benefits in efficiency and speed to global transfers. Earthport will apply its existing compliance framework, rule sets and secure payments network to any Earthport clients transacting using the Ripple protocol.”

Growth in international trade, e-commerce, and demographic shifts in population have driven both corporate and consumer demand for faster, cost-efficient, reliable and transparent cross-border payment solutions.

Earthport is the largest open network for global bank payments, servicing businesses and financial institutions across 60 countries around the world. (Image: Earthport)

Ripple Labs is incredibly proud to have a partner at the forefront of the payments industry. Earthport was awarded the B2B Payments Innovation of the Year 2014 at the second annual FStech/Retail Systems Payments Awards. The company—which is listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) on the London Stock Exchange and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Service Regulations 2009—services major institutional clients in over sixty countries.

“Traditional cross-border payments are inefficient today because both the technology and compliance frameworks underpinning them were built country by country decades ago,” said Chris Larsen, co-founder and CEO of Ripple Labs, the developer of the Ripple protocol. “The Earthport and Ripple partnership brings together the leading global payments and technology infrastructures to immediately transform and modernise the global payments industry.”

Earthport’s proven compliance platform provides an immense opportunity for international scalability given their expertise in navigating local regulations. For Ripple Labs, the partnership represents another major milestone as part of the company’s mission to develop and expand the Ripple network by plugging into the existing financial system.

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