The recent speculations about a possible partnership between SWIFT and Ripple have been squashed as ‘idle speculation’ with SWIFT vehemently denying any ongoing partnership conversation with the tech firm.
Source of the romur
In the past few days Ripple’s fanatics have been hyping a rumor about a possible merger between Ripple and SWIFT. The rumor possibly emanated from the news about Ripple’s intended participation in this year’s Sibo conference that would be held in Sydney, Australia. This year’s main agenda will be discussing problems banking institutions face in handling cross boarder payments.
The rumors were further fueled by a possible partnership between SWIFT and Santander. The two partners will (speculatively) stage collaborative efforts to develop a Global payment Initiative program. To facilitate the cross-border payment, the two firms would need a liquidity-provider, purportedly Ripple, considering that Santander is already a member of the Ripple network leveraging on Ripple’s proprietary Xcurrent offering.
Idle Speculations
However, when contacted by journalists seeking clarifications on the much hyped rumor, a spokesperson for SWIFT said, “I’m not sure where those rumors are coming from but the upcoming standards release … is entirely unrelated to RippleNet.”
On its part, Ripple’s Global Head of Infrastructure Innovation Dilip Rao, termed the rumors as “idle speculations.” Were the rumors true, then the resultant business from the merger would be exceptionally huge. This is considering SWIFT’s current exemplary performance as a secure messaging system for banks. On its side Ripple is growing exponentially as an efficient cross-border payment solution.
Rival’s competitive advantage
Unlike Swift, Ripple is a great instant liquidity provider. It is feared that with the rate at which Ripple is growing, it is just a matter of time before it renders SWIFT obsolete. Unfortunately SWIFT runs on a 20 years old system. The company however, is aware that it might soon be pushed out of the way and is already researching on its own blockchain solution as opposed to simply relying on a third-party’s technology.
The rumored merger would be a good way for the two rivals to exist in the same market. Ripple would leverage on SWIFT’s network of traditional banks and SWIFT would upgrade its system with Ripple’s blockchain solution. Problem would however, arise when Ripple converts SWIFT’s clients to its.
