Over the past few months, there has been a lot of talk regarding financial service providers experimenting with Ripple technology. That list includes some big names including Western Union, MoneyGram, and MercuryFX. This latter company has confirmed that their recent trial with xRapid was successful. Going into production will be their next step.
MercuryFX is Pleased With xRapid
Conducting a proper trial with emerging technologies is always the first step in any industry. For financial service providers, these trials are even more critical, especially when bridging the gap between traditional finance, blockchain, and digital assets. MercuryFX is one of the many companies looking closer at what Ripple can bring to the table in this regard. In particular, the company’s xRapid solution is of great interest to these service providers.
For those unaware of what xRapid does, it is a new source of liquidity for moving vast sums of money across borders. Under the hood, xRapid makes use of the native XRP asset to provide this liquidity and ease of use. As such, any company experimenting with xRapid is exploring the potential success of XRP, even though they may not necessarily be directly involved with buying, owning, or using XRP.
It is primarily this latter point which has been a topic of substantial debate. While xRapid will boost the overall liquidity of any service provider making use of this technology, it remains to be seen how central the role of XRP will be. While xRapid and XRP are connected rather tightly, the service providers who make use of xRapid may not be too interested in XRP.
In Q1, along with other xRapid pilots customers, we have proved that #xRapid can lower liquidity costs & increase payment speed and transparency using #XRP. We are looking forward to continued successful testing and going into production.https://t.co/hlYDcFyG7o
— Mercury-fx Ltd (@mercury_fx_ltd) April 26, 2018
Even so, the important takeaway is that MercuryFX trialed this liquidity solution and deemed it satisfactory. Although it remains unclear what this trial entailed exactly – no further specifics were provided – the company has deemed it good enough to enter the production stage in the very near future. For now, their main focus is on “continued successful testing”. Once those tests are completed, going into production will be the next step in development.
According to the Ripple blog, the company will continue to grow the number of xRapid pilots and move existing pilots into production. While that sounds like a positive development, it does not say much as to what the existing clients are experimenting with. We do know live transactions are involved in every pilot, but no further information has been made public at this time.
There is one important development regarding xRapid to take into account: the market share of XRP has doubled. XRP II, LLC has extended new XRP loans to market makers as well. These loans will help provide additional liquidity for xRapid, which will make cross-border payments even faster and more efficient in the future. If XRP can become less prone to market volatility, the solution will – most likely – gain even more appeal among financial service providers.
