Ripple Adds Three X-Border Payment Cos

Ripple, the cross-border payments company and backer of the XRP digital token, said Monday (Oct. 1) that xRapid, its cross-border payments platform, is commercially available with three firms signing on as clients.

According to a report in Reuters, citing the companies, the three clients that are using xRapid at the launch are Cuallix, Mercury FX and Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union. xRapid uses XRP to make faster cross-border payments. Mercury FX and Cuallix are both in the money transferring business, reported Reuters, noting that Catalyst is a wholesale co-op financial firm that provides services to credit unions in the U.S.

If the clients’ projects go live on xRapid, it would mark the first time digital tokens are used in a commercial product for financial firms. In an interview with Reuters, Brad Garlinghouse, chief executive of Ripple, wouldn’t disclose the volume of payments the company expects to process on behalf of the three firms that will use xRapid.

The announcement comes as Ripple is heading up a new cryptocurrency lobbying group called Securing America’s Internet of Value Coalition. CoinDesk, citing a Business Standard report late last week, reported the companies behind the lobbying group also include the RippleWorks Foundation; Coil, a company developing a solution for digital payments; Hard Yaka, an investment firm focusing on digital assets; and PolySign, a company seeking to be a crypto custodian. CoinDesk noted that most of the members of the new lobbying group have ties to Ripple, pointing to Coil as one example. Its founder is the former chief technology officer at Ripple.

Meanwhile, Hard Yaka is developing a prepaid card that lets users spend Ripple balances on the spot. The aim of the group is to have an influence on regulation in the cryptocurrency market, and to influence policymakers in Congress and government agencies as they “examine this new technology and wrestle with a regulatory regime that must be updated to meet the needs of this global financial transition,” the group said.