LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Earthport, the largest open global bank payment network, today announced the enhancement of its global gateway to enable real-time cross-border payments via distributed ledger protocol. With a single, simple integration into Earthport, its clients can have access to the fastest payments possible, whether through the company’s Expedited Payments (Global ACH); Faster Payments (in the markets where available), and now, Real Time Payments, via a partnership with Ripple Labs.
Banks across the world have become captivated with the power of the distributed ledger, but have had difficulty reconciling their compliance requirements with the technology. Earthport bridges this gap by allowing banks to maintain their current technology and compliance regimes, while also benefitting from this powerful new payment technology.
“We are thrilled to expand our Payment Network and our mission to provide ‘fastest payments possible’ with easy access to Distributed Ledger so that our clients can realize its benefits, including immediate transaction settlement and reduced counterparty risk,” said Hank Uberoi, the CEO of Earthport. “We have experienced significant interest in this protocol and our clients are far along into the planning stage for initial testing.”
Gareth Lodge, an analyst at Celent, a top financial services advisory firm, said that the industry is still at the evaluation phase, but almost all agree that distributed ledger has promise. According to Lodge, “Banks are actively exploring what opportunities decentralised ledger-based solutions could bring. The challenge is finding a way to harness the benefits, yet ensure the absolute essentials – security, compliance, resilience etc – are met, along with an understanding that payments involve far more than just a movement of value.”
How the Earthport Distributed Ledger Gateway Works
By simplifying the cross-border payment system, Earthport’s network gives businesses unparalleled transparency into the up-front cost and timescales for making their cross-border payment, so they can accurately track their payment throughout the process. The Earthport Distributed Ledger Gateway transports the funds through the Ripple protocol to record the transaction and leverage its prefunded accounts to provide instant liquidity and the best FX rate. Then, the beneficiary receives the amount in near real-time.
In addition, Earthport allows banks to connect to the Ripple network without having to establish their own infrastructure. This solution brings best-in-class AML monitoring, sanction screening, transaction monitoring and KYC tools to enable compliance control together with the power of distributed ledger. Banks that still use legacy formats will be able to send and receive Ripple with Earthport managing format transformation.
Earthport’s distributed ledger gateway brings clients many benefits, including:
- Instant Payments and Liquidity: Ripple represents the fastest way to transfer value between two parties. Each transaction, despite the currency, is delivered and settled between financial institutions parties within seconds.
- Mitigation of Risk: Pre-funding associated with the model eliminates counter-party risk.
- Transaction Cost Efficiencies: International transactions are executed at the lowest cost FX bid/ask spread available in this model.
- Compliance-friendly: Earthport, as a registered financial firm, maintains a highly regulated network, and its validation database are an operational component of Earthport’s Distributed Ledger Gateway.
- Ease of Adaptability: The Earthport gateway eliminates the need for clients to invest resources, funds and timelines to realize transactions through distributed ledger.
For more information, visit: www.Earthport.com
About Earthport
Earthport is a global payments network for businesses. A UK company at the vanguard of the digital economy, Earthport is revolutionising a decades old payments system to provide a faster, safer, lower cost way of making payments internationally. Earthport is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), with robust compliance measures in place. Its key investors include World Bank IFC, Oppenheimer, Henderson, Schroders and Blackrock.