Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says banks and payment platforms like Apple Pay are relying on crusty, outdated systems that are long overdue for replacement.
At this week’s Money20/20 Europe expo, the head of Ripple talked with the co-founder of 11:FS, Simon Taylor, about the increasing role of blockchain in the digital payments industry.
Garlinghouse outlined the distinction between Ripple’s products and the status quo, pointing to Apple Pay as a company that’s adding a slick new interface on top of old-fashioned infrastructure.
“Everything that happens below these services – down the stack – hasn’t changed. Ripple’s point of view is that to truly unlock innovation in the payments ecosystem, you have to start way down at the bottom. If you can reset the rail – the base layer – you can really unlock innovation…
Our customers are asking themselves: ‘If I want to be competitive for the next 10 years – for the next 50 – do I want to be dependent on what is effectively a horse and buggy system in a world of Teslas?'”
Ripple’s CEO has made a number of headlines recently.
Yesterday, Garlinghouse revealed that he expects dozens of banks will use its XRP-powered xRapid technology next year. He also affirmed Bitcoin’s utility as a store of value, but called BTC a slow and expensive means of exchange, saying the granddaddy of cryptocurrency won’t have as wide-ranging an impact as people once thought.