One of the biggest usage of XRP will be in cross-border money management. The Ripple powered instant payment services will be a force for good. In the MENA region alone, foreign expatriate workers send home about 25 bio dollars annually. Bank of Egypt, Bank Dhofar, Lulu are all part of the Ripple networks. The three major countries who have the highest number of expats sending money home are China, India and Philippines. Ripple’s biggest network and applications are in South East Asia and Japan. Those expats workers should benefit tremendously from XRP’s power of utility and Ripple’s global network. They all will be sending money at a fraction of the costs that they are incurring now through banks and other exchanges. The speed is the most important thing. Payments are made within three seconds while Bitcoin will take up to 10 minutes and is even more costly. Utility matters and finally that will win the day.
In ten years from now there will be 8 or 10 important blockchain companies and XRP will be one of them. Very recently Sendi Young was appointed as head of Ripple in Europe. Formerly she worked at MasterCard as head of overseas strategy and financial engineering. She is going to champion global networks and AI technology at Ripple as well. Ripple soon could be working on private ledger for CBDCs. Once the lawsuit is cleared, there will be better regulatory clarity.
Ripple has been registered with the economic department of the UAE government for ODL (on demand liquidity). Ripple has a long connection with UAE. They have their regional office centered in DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre). Ripple uses inter-ledger protocol eliminating correspondent banking. It will be a bridge between two currencies and receives the money in their respective local currencies. There will be no more pre-funding of destination accounts. Customers will be tapping ODL to make instant cross border payments. Paying fiat currencies to receive digital currencies. My hunch is UAE and Ripple are very keen on this as this will be an excellent test case at a global level for the application of a digital currency while China has been gearing up for their own digital e-Yuan for the Winter Olympics.
Sandie O’Connor is another very experienced lady who joined the board of Ripple at the end of last year. She formerly worked with JP Morgan for about 30 years and was the chief regulatory affairs officer. One should really look up the talent that Ripple has hired to make up their leadership.
XRP recently invested in Mintable an Ethereum powered NFT platform.
Unless you are very close to the markets you may not observe the ripples that Ripple is making. This company is really going to go places.
Abraham George is a seasoned investment manager with more than 40 years of experience in trading & investment and portfolio management spanning diverse environments like banks (HSBC, ADCB), sovereign wealth fund (ADIA), a royal family office and a hedge fund.