Blockchain start-up Ripple could launch a commercial application of its cryptocurrency-focused product “in the next month or so,” an executive at the company has told CNBC.
Sagar Sarbhai, head of regulatory relations for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East at Ripple, said Monday that the firm was making significant headway with its xRapid product, which is aimed at helping banks speed up transactions by using the cryptocurrency XRP.
“I am very confident that in the next one month or so you will see some good news coming in where we launch the product live in production,” Sarbhai said of xRapid in an interview with CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal.
Ripple says its xRapid product uses the XRP cryptocurrency as a kind of “bridge” between currencies, allowing payment providers and banks to process faster cross-border transactions.
For example, a bank might want to process a transaction from U.S. dollars to Indian rupees. According to Ripple, this process requires pre-funded local currency accounts in order to take place. With xRapid, Ripple claims that process would be sped up by converting the U.S. dollars into XRP tokens, to then move the money overseas, converting it back into Indian rupees at the other end.
The company has struck deals with various high-profile financial institutions, including Santander, American Express, MoneyGram and Western Union. But those partnerships have so far either been unrelated to XRP or are strictly xRapid trial runs. Not a single bank has begun testing the cryptocurrency product yet.
Sarbhai said that more than 120 banks and financial institutions are currently partnered with Ripple, using its blockchain-based product xCurrent. Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, is commonly defined as a decentralized database for recording transactions — like a ledger book, only shared across multiple locations and with no central authority overseeing it.
Ripple’s xCurrent is used by banks to settle international transactions. The company says the platform, based on distributed ledger technology, is used by banks to message one another, confirming each stage of a cross-border payment in real-time.
Earlier this year, Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse said the start-up would have “dozens” of banks using xRapid by the end of 2019.