There is a lot that Ripple Inc seeks to achieve. As a formidable competitor of SWIFT, the age-old, 43-year-old messaging network designed for bankers for their then efficiency, Brad Garlinghouse’s Ripple Inc is fronting three solutions in xCurrent, xRapid and xVia in a RippleNet Suite. Although just over 200 banks are already connected to the RippleNet, utilizing xCurrent for their operations, most are reluctant to upgrade or publicly announce their delving in and incorporation of xRapid, a solution that draws its liquidity from XRP, a utility that investors have their money in.
Brad Addressing Bankers
It is XRP that is of interest and at the backdrop of news that Ripple Labs, an independent company and the official issuer of XRP, has deviated from their initial escrow cheque and under-reported the amount of XRP in their escrows in a report from Coin Metrics which David Schwartz rightly dismiss as “a timeline issue”, the CEO of Ripple Inc took the stage during 9th High-Level Conference on the International Monetary System organized by the Swiss National Bank and the IMF to specifically discuss about the Past, Present and Future of the International Monetary System where he was the only attendee from the private sector. In attendance were Ahmed Abdulkarim, SAMA Governor, Christine Lagarde, IMF Chairwoman and crypto and Bitcoin critic, Agustin Carstens, BIS Chairman.
ILP and IoV
Brad took the platform to pitch Ripple solutions saying the “global payments today have not caught up with the age of the internet” and calling for global interoperability reminding the audience that in spite of what SWIFT allowed, a massive 6 percent of all their transactions require “human intervention” giving room for error. It is because of this that new efficient technologies can be used to arrest fallibilities as a new web of internet of value is built. It’s interoperability that is at the center and the core of Internet of Value (IoV) and making this possible from Ripple Inc point of view is the InterLedger Protocol (ILP) which is open source. Because of ILP, decentralized apps can make purchases without the restrictions of working within a particular ledger. XRP is at core and with BTC plugin allowing operation across blockchain borders, it is this independent company that will make IoV thrive.
xCurrent an Improvement of SWIFT
He goes on to talk about xCurrent which he says is an upgrade of SWIFT adding that it is faster, efficient and secure. Inculcating xRapid in their web and there is instantaneous settlement since liquidity is on-demand. Brad notes that because of these properties that their options allow, they have seen an immediate “demand from banks and FIs who want to open up a new corridor for payments but don’t want to open up new Nostro and Vostro relationships.”