Today is a bright day for Ripple. Western Union(WU) also joined the Ripple club as they confirm that they are testing Ripple technology which is a blockchain-based settlement system. The confirmation means that they will be part of the 100 financial institutions across the world that are currently using Ripple technology.
Western Union is now testing Ripple for the last one-month which started in early January. The news broke when Chief Financial Officer Raj Agarwal confirmed the news in an interview with Bloomberg. With the interview, the speculation that lasted over a month is now ended.
Hikmet Ersek, the chief officer of Western Union, came forward and acknowledged the news. He also added, “We are looking especially in the processing settlement and working capital optimization, also in the regulation part, on the compliance part on the blockchain capabilities.”
Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse also told Bloomberg about the partnership.
Western Union is not the first bank to pick Ripple to process settlement of capitals using Ripple. Earlier, Bank of England and Saudi bank also confirmed agreements with Ripple.
Money transfer across borders have always been an issue for banks and other financial institutes. Ripple is trying to solve the problem by providing a solution that works. XRP is just the currency that facilitates the transaction. However, this doesn’t let XRP settle down as it gained 10% in one day after the news broke out.
Ripple is seen as the faster alternative to Bitcoin. However, many crypto-enthusiasts are worried about its centralized nature, and there is a divided community surrounding Ripple and its impact on the crypto-currency market.
Ripple(XRP), in the past, reached over $3 before correcting to sub $1 levels. Now, it is slowly moving to above $1, and at the time of writing, it is $1.16.
Ripple seems to bounce back soon thanks to the positive sentiments surrounding it.