The price of XRP, the cryptocurrency associated with Ripple – a company that uses blockchain to provide financial services – has increased by 74% in four days. This jump comes after a Ripple executive told CNBC that the company could launch its xRapid product focused on cryptocurrency "in a month or so."
"I am very confident that in the next month or so you will see some good news coming up when we launch the product live in production," said Sagar Sarbhai, Head of Regulatory Relations for Asia-Pacific and Middle East at Ripple . Sarbhai also added that the company is making steady progress with xRapid, which aims to help banks accelerate transactions using XRP.
The Ripple website describes xRapid as a product for payment providers and other financial institutions that wish to minimize liquidity costs and also improve their customer experience. "Payments in emerging markets often require pre-funded local-currency accounts worldwide, liquidity costs are high xRapid drastically reduces capital requirements for liquidity," says the website.
Sarbhai said around 120 banks and financial institutions had already collaborated with Ripple on the use of its blockchain-based regulation product, xCurrent. This product, unlike xRapid, does not use digital currency to help cross-border transactions but uses the Ripple block network.
Currently, Ripple has important institutions and companies that test xRapid, and these include MoneyGram, Western Union, Mercury FX and Cambridge Global Payments. Although none of these companies decided to use xRapid when formally launched, other companies, such as SBI Bank, Cuallix and Zip Remit, have already committed to using the product.