(16 November 2017 – Europe) Payments made by American Express' business customers on its FXIP platform will now be routed through Ripple's enterprise blockchain network.
The blockchain project will initially allow customers in the U.S. to make instant, traceable cross-border payments with U.K. Santander bank accounts
Ripple said that its cryptocurrency, XRP, will “come into play” as a means of speeding up payments later on down the line
Payments made by American Express' business customers on its FX International Payments (FXIP) platform will now be routed through Ripple's enterprise blockchain network, RippleNet.
“This collaboration with Ripple and Santander represents the next step forward on our blockchain journey, evolving the way we move money around the world,” Marc Gordon, executive vice president and chief information officer at American Express, said in a statement Thursday.
American Express' blockchain project will initially allow customers in the U.S. to connect instant, traceable cross-border non-card payments to U.K. Santander bank accounts.
“This blockchain solution opens up a new channel between the U.S. and the U.K. and presents significant opportunity for payments globally”, Jose Luis Calderon, global head of global transaction banking at Santander, said in a statement Thursday.
The distributed ledger platform will enable all parties involved to keep track of a transaction's status and cost.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that its blockchain network would allow the business customers of financial services firms to move money in “real-time.”
“We're taking a huge step forward with American Express and Santander in solving the problems corporate customers experience with global payments. Transfers that used to take days will be completed in real-time, allowing money to move as fast as business today,” Garlinghouse said in a statement Thursday.
Both American Express and Santander suggested the blockchain project could eventually be extended worldwide