Ripple Challenges SWIFT Payments Network, CEO Brad Garlinghouse Says

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse denied rumors saying that the company might work with SWIFT and said that Ripple was actually overtaking the traditional payments network.

Ripple Labs, the company behind the third-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, is confident that its blockchain solutions will help it overtake the traditional SWIFT network, CEO Brad Garlinghouse reportedly said. SWIFT has dominated the global financial and security transfer market for years, but Ripple is ready to challenge it by leveraging distributed ledger technology (DLT).

SWIFT, which stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, was founded in 1973 and is currently used by enterprises and individuals to transfer funds across the borders. Today, the entity has over 11,000 customers working in the corporate sector and capital markets in almost all the countries in the world.

However, unlike SWIFT, Ripple’s blockchain-based system doesn’t involve intermediaries and acts as a decentralized global network, which ensures faster transactions. Garlinghouse said that his firm had attracted several new clients in a period when financial companies are keen to adopt blockchain to address logistical challenges caused by older software. The San Francisco-based company uses its XRP cryptocurrency as an intermediary coin when converting fiat currencies. This approach is used in Ripple’s xRapid, which went live last month.

Recently, the Ripple CEO attended the Singapore Fintech Festival. He told Bloomberg on the sidelines of the conference:

“The technologies that banks use today that Swift developed decades ago really hasn’t evolved or kept up with the market. Swift said not that long ago they didn’t see blockchain as a solution to correspondent banking. We’ve got well over 100 of their customers saying they disagree.”

Garlinghouse also denied the rumors saying that Ripple might collaborate with Swift for a potential joint project.

“What we’re doing and executing on a day-by-day basis is, in fact, taking over Swift,” the CEO added.

In fact, SWIFT itself denied the rumors earlier this month, saying that its new Global Payments Innovation upgrade had nothing to do with Ripple’s technology.

Ripple claims to have over 100 banks and payment services as members of its RippleNet network, including big names like Standard Chartered and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG). On Tuesday, we reported that MUFG partnered with Brazilian bank Bradesco to adopt Ripple’s technology for Japan-Brazil cross-border payments.