Ripple chief technology officer David Schwartz says the San Francisco startup is exploring whether it should offer decentralized financial (DeFi) services to its institutional partners.
During a recent interview with BlockDown TV, Schwartz was asked where he sees Ripple’s network of banks and financial institutions five years from now.
The CTO, who is one of the original architects of the XRP ledger, says he hopes RippleNet can be a one-stop shop and the first choice for institutions hoping to make many different types of payments.
The company is also well-structured to start offering new services, according to Schwartz.
“We’re also looking into offering other services through RippleNet – things like loans, or maybe even if DeFi grows, offering DeFi services to institutional partners.
One of the unique things that Ripple has is we have our software in the transaction flow of all these financial institutions and banks, so we can develop some new product or services, or even something that comes from the DeFi space, and we can offer it immediately right into the transaction flow of those institutions.”
Schwartz’s comments aren’t the first indication of Ripple’s interest in DeFi. Last year, the company announced it had acquired Logos, a turnkey payments start-up, to lead “an ongoing initiative to explore a decentralized financial system that will leverage XRP at its core.”
Ripple has also posted job advertisements that hint at the company’s interest in building a “next generation trading platform.” Ripple wants to integrate the platform into its XRP-powered cross-border payments solution, On-Demand Liquidity. Whether such a platform will involve DeFi remains to be seen.
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