Ripple Labs Partners With the Egyptian National Bank to Bolster Remittances

Ripple Labs, the cryptocurrency firm behind digital asset XRP, is looking to build on the stellar year it had in 2019. So far, the firm has done a rather good job of that. 

Earlier this week, the San Francisco-based crypto giant partnered with the National Bank of Egypt to develop new channels of making inward remittances, per a report from local daily news site Youm7. 

Improving Its Services in the Region 

Remittances are a fledgling industry at the moment, with a worldwide industry worth about $600 billion. Egypt is also one of the industry leaders, ranking in fifth among world countries in terms of remittance volumes- behind only China, Mexico, India, and the Philippines. Now that the Egyptian National Bank has joined RippleNet, it will be looking to bolster its access to new and emerging markets, while also ensuring that it can strengthen its remittance business across the Gulf region. 

Dalia El-Baz, the Chairman of the National Bank, explained that he sees an opportunity for RippleNet to grow exponentially due to its partnership with the financial institution, while the bank will also be able to improve its liquidity management and foreign currency earnings. In addition, the National Bank also hopes that it’ll be able to improve its customer base through an enhanced cross-border payment channel, as it combines the high levels of operational efficiency of the blockchain with compliance with international insurance standards.  

Ripple Keeps Getting Stronger 

As for Ripple, the firm has continued to strengthen its core business by partnering with even more financial institutions. Last week, it partnered with International Money Express- a remittance platform that focuses on the Caribbean and Latin American regions- to bolster cross-border payments between Mexico and the United States. 

Through the new partnership, International Money Express, also known as Intermex, will be able to take advantage of Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) platform through RippleNet to access financial institutions. The ODL uses XRP as a real-time connector between parties transacting with currencies, thus ensuring that cross-border transactions are cheaper and faster. 

The remittance company, which is based out of Florida and has been listed on the NASDAQ, is said to be processing about 30 million transactions every year. The firm has been on a mission to ensure faster, cheaper cross-border transactions with greater transparency to customers- especially those in Mexico and the U.S. The latter, which is now one of the largest remittance markets in the world, needs an effective service to handle this business and Intermex is hoping to fill that void. 

By partnering with RippleNet, it can start on the right track towards getting that done. Although none of these is expected to have much of an effect on the XRP price that has stalled over the past few months, it shows that Ripple Labs remains one of the strongest firms in the crypto space.