The company Ripple, which straddles the world of virtual currency and cross-border remittances, is left calm and collected by RBI’s (Reserve Bank of India’s) restriction on how banks carry out their dealings with cryptocurrencies. The company is betting on Basel norms and the Reserve Bank of India’s own panel report on cryptocurrencies for the new framework that could bring about rescinding the ban.
Dilip Rao, Ripple’s global head of infrastructure innovation, said that XRP is unlike Bitcoin and other digital currencies as it’s designed to enable remittance of fiat currency instead of replacing it. Aside from using XRP for remittance, the company also attempts to offer its platform Ripple Network to lenders for facilitating cross-border remittances – opposing the SWIFT Network which has been primarily used by banks.
Yes Bank, Induslund and Axis Bank has been tied up by Ripple along with private lenders for utilising blockchain-based platforms for payments. Also, the banks and private lender were doing this without the use of the virtual currency asset. However, it maintains the point that it aims to use XRP in the future as a way of ‘connecting cryptocurrency’ to further assist with remittance.
In 2017, Ripple had also set up an office in Mumbai and assigned former Citibanker, Navin Gupta as the country manager for the firm.
Rao said:
“There is a great regulatory comfort with Ripple Net, particularly in the light of the Bank for International Settlements’ policy requiring central banks to have a backup for payment having nom-similar technology.”
Rao added that this was vital as payment systems were consistently important and if there was to be a cyber attack to the system then it would be related to an infection of the core. In India, as well as the RBI barring banks form servicing companies dealing with virtual currencies, it has also assembled a panel to look at the chance of a central bank digital currency.
Rao continued to say:
“Even from a geopolitical point of view, countries are having concerns over the existing cross-border payment systems, which can be switched off with a turn of the switch.”
More so to pitching to Ripple for cross-border payments, the company is now offering its own alternative platform to RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement) system for countries don’t have a developed interbank network.