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Ripple raids the Chinese market, thanks to its partnerships with American Express and the LianLian group. Both American Express and LianLian Group have been established partner of Ripple and confirmed members of RippleNet.
American Express, the multinational financial services company, recently announced the Chinese approval of its global payments platform, AmEx.
This approval marks the first time that an American company obtains direct access to the Chinese e-commerce market, which is expected to be the largest card payment network by 2019.
This development is made possible through a joint venture with LianLian Group, a payment settlement provider that previously settled payments exclusively through the state-controlled UnionPay network. Therefore, even on this front AmEx is affirming itself.
The AmEx-LianLian joint venture is called Express (Hangzhou) Technology Service Co. and has 1 year to complete the preparations for operations.
Ripple partnership with AmEx and LianLian Group
This news means that Ripple is able to penetrate their market of highest priority for cross-border payments. AmEx has collaborated with Ripple last year, and aims to better serve small and medium-sized businesses with a rapid and uninterrupted processing of payments.
As for the Ripple partnership with the LianLian group, it should not be overlooked.
LianLian Group already has over 150 million registered customers and uses Ripple's blockchain to settle e-commerce payments in China. In addition, they regulate cross-border payments using Ripple & # 39; s xCurrent.
As a partner of Ripple, the joint venture can easily adopt xCurrent through multi-hop, as well as a connection to xRapid in the future.
Asheesh Birla, Ripple's Senior VP of Product describes the benefits of XCurrent and xVia products:
xVia allows you to use a standard connection to get all the benefits of RippleNet and our products. Without xRapid they would use xCurrent and where xRapid is available, they can then add xRapid and move money on demand using XRP and instant payment. They reach wherever xCurrent is available, whether it is a bank or a cash payment provider.
Therefore, the more customers access xCurrent, the greater the impact on the network as a whole.
In addition, Ripple's product director, Craig DeWitt, has explained what can the xCurrent network really get via the function known as multi-hop:
Multi-hop offers Ripple members the ability to make transactions with banks or payment providers or digital wallets with which they do not have a direct relationship. This is important because in today's world you need a bunch of bilateral relationships clunkily put together in a chain in order to move money. Multi-hop makes that thing of the past.
The position of China on cryptocurrencies
The Chinese government has strict policies regarding cryptocurrencies, which means it is powered by Ripple's XRP xRapid we will probably not see adoption soon in the country. Thus, it may be thought that new developments with AmEx and LianLian Group may not have a direct impact on the use of XRP.
However, the country has shown much interest and support for blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLP) and Ripple uses both of these technologies in its xCurrent and xVia products.
Regardless of this, this approval granted by the Chinese government is a positive sign and certainly opens up possibilities both for the e-commerce market and for cryptocurrencies.
With this and more recent developmentsIt is clear that Ripple is making great strides to become the No. 1 company in the processing of global payments.
