- A few days ago, representatives of Ripple, including Brad Garlinghouse, met with the Central Bank of Brazil.
- The focus of the meeting was to examine the needs of institutional clients.
Ripple works worldwide with companies, major investors, commercial and central banks and payment service providers. Last year, the Bank of France already discussed in a research paper the possible applications and potential of the digital asset XRP for the banking sector and its possible suitability for the processing of cross-border payments. Last week another meeting was held with the Central Bank of Brazil and senior Ripple staff.
Ripple and Brad Garlinghouse in talks with Central Bank of Brazil
The virtual meeting took place on 29 May 2020 and lasted several hours. On the Ripple side, the following people participated: Brad Garlinghouse (CEO), Ben Lawsky (Member of the Board of Directors), Eric van Miltenburg (Senior VP, Global Operations) and Luiz Antonio Sacco (VP of Global Operations and General Director for Latin America).
On behalf of the Central Bank of Brazil, its President, Roberto Campos Neto, attended the meeting together with João Manoel Pinho de Mello (Director of Financial System Organization and Resolution) and Otavio Ribeiro Damaso (Director of Regulation). The aim of the meeting was to clarify institutional issues and discuss possible cooperation possibilities.
The meeting was closed to the press, so no further information has been leaked so far. Almost a year ago, around June 2019, Ripple opened an office in Brazil under the direction of Luiz Antonio Sacco. Initially, the main objective was to develop a customer base in Brazil and throughout South America (Chile, Argentina and Peru).
Already at the end of last year, Ripple announced that it was in talks with the country’s authorities and banks to discuss the use of Ripple’s payment solutions, including on-demand liquidity. Sacco stated in an interview at the time that Brazil is one of Ripple’s most important target markets and accounted for almost 30% of the total volume of transactions made via RippleNet.
According to Reuters, global transaction volumes to and from Brazil increased again by 10% last year, reaching USD 4.6 billion. A large part of this is still handled by Ripple’s largest competitor SWIFT. Ripple works in the region with Banco Topazio, Banco Bradesco, Rendimento, Itau Unibanco, BeeTech, Remessa Online, BEXS and Frente Corretora de Câmbio.
Campos Neto, President of the Central Bank of Brazil, is regarded in industry circles as a blockchain enthusiast and visionary. Shortly after taking office in March last year, he described how the blockchain will decisively change the financial world:
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Numerous payment corridors set new records
XRP’s liquidity reached a new all-time high a few days ago on the payment corridor to Mexico and Australia. Going forward, Ripple plans to work with Mexico’s largest stock exchange, Bitso, to handle 20% of the total transaction volume between Mexico and the US. Currently, the share of the total transaction volume is between 4% and 5%.
