Ripple Swell 2019 Recap

Ripple had its annual Swell Conference November 7th-8th in Singapore this year. Let’s recap some of the highlights from the 2019 event and the future of Ripple.

Ripple

If you’re unsure who Ripple is, the company provides blockchain technology that allows its partners to process and provide liquidity for payments on RippleNet. Their goal is creating new corridors and competitive cross-border payment services for their customers.

In essence, they’re tackling remittance, a $700 billion industry, to make cross-border payments cheaper for the customer. Ripple solves that problem by using XRP, Ripple’s digital currency, which offers banks and payment providers a reliable, on-demand option to source liquidity.

Swell 2019

According to the Swell 2019 website:

Swell, hosted by Ripple, brings together the world’s most trusted voices across financial services, payments, technology and policy to share the reality of what’s unfolding in global payments today — and why it matters.

Ripple Swell events are known for their keynote speakers and once again, they did not disappoint with a fantastic lineup.

Keynote Speakers

Kamal Quadir
bKash CEO

‍An entrepreneur, Quadir builds technology that brings about social progress. He is the CEO of bKash, a mobile money service in Bangladesh offering millions of the unbanked access to financial services. Prior, he founded CellBazaar, a mobile-based electronic marketplace for developing countries.

Ambassador Chan Heng Chee
Singapore Foreign Ministry

‍Serves as Ambassador-at-large within the Singapore Foreign Ministry. She chairs Singapore University’s Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, and is a Member of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights. Previously, she was Singapore’s Ambassador to the U.S. and Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the U.N.

Dr. Raghuram Rajan
Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth

‍Served as the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016 and previously served as the Chief Economist and Director of Research at the IMF from 2003 to 2006. Dr. Rajan is considered a key visionary behind India’s early adoption of mobile banking.

Ripple Swell 2019 Highlights

In a press release, Ripple announced they surpassed 300 customers. That’s insane growth since in January of 2018 they announced surpassing 200 customers!

During Swell 2018, Ripple announced On-Demand Liquidity (ODL, formerly known as xRapid), leveraging XRP to eliminate pre-funding in cross-border payments. Now less than a year later, two dozen customers are signed up using the product, with some already being live.

In June 2019, Ripple formed a strategic partnership with MoneyGram, one of the world’s largest money transfer companies. Shortly after, MoneyGram announced its plans to implement ODL. Just two months after the announcement, MoneyGram was live and transacting on RippleNet.

Announced at Swell 2019, MoneyGram processes 10% of its transactions between the U.S. and Mexican corridor via Ripple’s payments solution On-Demand Liquidity (ODL). The company initially started with payments into Mexico from the US but has since started sending cross-border payments to the Philippines.