American Express Partners With Ripple For Easy Cross-Border Payments

Coins and Tokens 1 min, 47 sec READ

by Nick Tsakanikas

Ripple and American Express representatives spoke about their partnership during Money 20/20. They aim to improve cross-border payments for SMEs.

Ripple (XRP) and American Express spokesmen discussed the challenges small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are facing with cross-border payments in a panel, during the Money 20/20 conference that took place this week in Amsterdam. Cross-border payments are a costly process for SMEs. Ripple aims to change this.

SMEs are the vast majority of businesses globally and emerging economies are widely dependent on them. Since so many are focused on e-commerce nowadays, executing cross-border payments occupies a notable amount of their resources. A McKinsey study shows that a whopping 60% of cross-border transactions require a manual intervention of up to 20 minutes. The panel, including Joy Macknight, Deputy Editor of The Banker; Colin O’Flaherty, American Express’s VP & General Manager of Global Commercial Services UK & Russia; and Marcus Treacher, Ripple’s SVP of Customer Success, shared their ideas about the need for fast and reliable payments, without intermediaries.

Ripple's Solution

Colin O'Flaherty described Ripple's solution,

Ripple offers instantaneous, point-to-point conversations between the sender and receiver of funds and that provides a real opportunity to alleviate most of the issues our customers are facing.

The discussion outlined the ways this partnership between Ripple and American Express could optimize cross-border payments and change SME owners’ relieve much of the burden that such transactions have on business. American Express has already adopted Ripple’s xCurrent, a blockchain-based infrastructure for global payments. US customers are already experiencing the benefits of blockchain technology, which is reflected by a marked decrease in customer queries about payment statuses.

According to Ripple’s Marcus Treacher,

The consumption of Ripple technology is not a heavy lift for SMEs. This is because we’re implementing within the existing payment networks and banking world.

The Ripple AMEX partnership goes beyond technological advancements, to address everything from fraud to user experience and customer service. O’Flaherty admitted that the project is still nascent, but blockchain technology offers great opportunities to solve real customer needs.