Western Union has officially confirmed the testing of Ripple’s xRapid solution. This is great news for both companies as improving liquidity in the remittances sector is absolutely necessary. Especially if this also leads to lower fees for users and service providers, things can only improve from now on.
Western Union officially adopts XRapid
Most cryptocurrency industry have mixed feelings when it comes to Ripple. The company seeks to work with banks and other financial service providers, in sharp contrast to the decentralized cryptocurrency. Still, most people recognize that XRP has some potential, assuming enough financial service providers use this asset. It now appears that Western Union is officially testing Ripple’s xRapid solution.
A relationship between the two companies has been raised for months, but has never been officially confirmed or denied. Last week, Western Union publicly confirmed that it was studying the xRapid solution for lower-cost liquidity. Being able to settle domestic and international payments in seconds for virtually no cost is of great interest to one of the world’s leading money transfer service providers.
For the moment, the service provider focuses mainly on new opportunities for processing, settlement and optimization of working capital. Blockchain technology has attracted a lot of interest from Western Union for some time, although the regulatory and compliance aspects of this technology still cause some concern to date. Some of their tests are done with Ripple’s xRapid solution, but that does not mean it’s the only partner they work with in this regard.
This announcement by Western Union comes at an interesting time, though. One of Western Union’s major competitors announced its interest in xRapid earlier this year. MoneyGram has officially confirmed that they consider xRapid and XRP valid for money transmission services, although there have been no other communications since the start of these tests. MoneyGram seems closer to using this solution than Western Union, but time will tell how things are changing.
