Ripple Upgrades American Express and Santander, Offering New Access to XRP-Powered xRapid

Ripple has started rolling out the new version of xCurrent to some of its clients, including American Express and Santander.

The new 4.0 version gives the financial giants the option to plug into xRapid, Ripple’s cross-border payment solution that utilizes XRP to provide enhanced speed and liquidity. But will the companies actually use it?

Ripple started upgrading clients to the new version in September, and a company spokesperson told CoinDesk that so far, no one has opted to utilize the software’s new integration with xRapid.

In addition, a communications manager at Banco Santanders says that for now, the company is sticking with xCurrent for its mobile payment app One Pay FX.

“Santander uses xCurrent only, not xRapid or XRP. And the bank has not upgraded so far. Santander does not need nowadays that upgrade to deliver all the benefits of One Pay FX.”

Ripple officially released xRapid in October, and revealed that MercuryFX, Cuallix and Catalyst Corporate Credit Union are using the software for commercial payments. Ripple senior vice president of product Asheesh Birla says it’s already helping them lower costs and improve settlement times.

“The feedback so far from our customers, is using the xRapid experience cuts down on cost, but also cuts down on setup time.”

Ripple has also partnered with crypto exchanges Bittrex, Coins.ph and Bitso, which will use xRapid to boost cross-border payments between the US and the Philippines, and the US and Mexico.

Back in June, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said he expects “dozens” of banks will implement xRapid by the end of 2019.

“I think as we do things that enhance the utility of XRP, we’ll continue to see that ecosystem grow and be healthier and healthier. I’ve publicly stated by the end of this year I have every confidence that major banks will use xRapid as a liquidity tool by the end of this year. By the end of next year, I would certainly hope that we would see an order of magnitude – dozens.”

Also in June, Western Union announced that its pilot of xRapid did not save the company time or money. In response, Ripple said the results show smaller financial institutions and startups are more likely to initially see significant savings with the technology.

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