San Francisco-based blockchain payments company Ripple has partnered with Pyypl, a blockchain-based financial services technology company in the Middle East and Africa, to use XRP for cross-border payments in the Middle East, according to a company statement.
Fast facts
- The partnership with Pyypl marks RippleNet’s first-ever On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) deployment in the Middle East and comes as Ripple expands its RippleNet ODL service around the world despite its legal troubles in the United States.
- In July, Ripple partnered with SBI Remit, Japan’s largest money transfer provider, mobile payments service Coins.ph and digital asset exchange platform SBI VC Trade on an ODL corridor to use XRP for remittances between Japan and the Philippines. Ripple has also acquired a 40% stake in Tranglo in March as part of its expansion plans for RippleNet in Southeast Asia.
- The Middle East contains two of the world’s three largest remittance corridors with the UAE and Saudi Arabia handling a combined US$78 billion in payments in 2020, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
- XRP will not be held within the UAE and transactions will not involve the currency AED as part of the payment flow, the company statement said.
- “MENA continues to be a critical region for Ripple thanks to our outstanding roster of customers, a welcoming regulatory environment and a regional focus on the needed improvements in the current financial system,” said Brooks Entwistle, managing director of RippleNet in APAC and MENA. “The establishment of yet another first-in-market ODL launch demonstrates the understanding that digital assets will play a central role in the future of global payments.”
- Ripple established a regional headquarters in Dubai in 2021, and the company says transaction volumes year-to-date have grown four times compared to 2020.