The Money 20/20 event came to a close on the 6th of June in Amsterdam. The event is a global event hosted in different cities to bring together the best minds in fintech, financial systems and now recently, blockchain technology. This event is where Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, was quoted as saying that more and more banks were continually embracing Ripple’s technology.

His words indicated that the number was continually growing and had this to say with respect to the rapid adoption of xRapid by the banks:

By the end of this year, major banks will use xRapid as a liquidity tool. By the end of next year, I would certainly hope that we will see…in the order of magnitude…of dozens. But we also need to continue to grow that ecosystem…grow the liquidity.

A similar momentum is evident in Ripple’s other product, xCurrent. This product is the backbone of Santander’s OnePayFX service that has excited the international money transfer industry in that it is a mobile app that completes international transactions in a matter of seconds. The demonstration a few days back, clearly showed how efficient xCurrent is. This has even led Santander to use Ripple products for 50% of its international transfers.

Is is therefore with this background, that American Express officially announced that it was also using xCurrent to increase the transactions speeds on its payment processing platform. The announcement came during a panel discussion at the same Money 20/20 event that Brad Garlinghouse was attending.

Colin O’Flaherty, American Express’s VP & General Manager of global commercial services UK & Russia, had this to say during the discussion at the event:

Ripple offers instantaneous, point-to-point conversations between the sender and receiver of funds. And that provides a real opportunity to alleviate most of the issues our customers are facing.

xCurrent provides a new blockchain-based infrastructure for global payments by integrating it with the already existing American Express infrastructure. Therefore, the SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) that facilitate payments of goods and services to customers on a regular basis, are the core beneficiaries of the efficient services that is as a result of the integration of the two platforms.

This means that American Express transactions are as fast as the OnePayFX app by Santander. American Express aims to expand this new integrated services the same way Santander is planning on rolling out the app across different countries around the globe. This is indeed good news for the Ripple Community.