Ripple Adds 7 New Financial Institutions as Tech Partners

San Francisco-based distributed ledger tech startup Ripple has added seven new partner financial institutions.

Announced today, ATB Financial, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), Reisebank, Santander, UniCredit and UBS have all revealed that they are using the technology, though Ripple said the specific use cases each partner is pursuing varies.

In interview, Ripple CEO Chris Larsen sought to position the partnerships as evidence that adoption of the company’s technology is increasing, and that these partners are increasingly serious about using its offerings for real money transfers.

Larsen told CoinDesk:

"We’ve reached the stage where a significant number of these banks are moving to commercial production. What’s significant here is the space is moving beyond experimentation and moving into actually deploying this."

The announcement follows the news that Santander is using Ripple as part of an internal trial open to employees that it aims to take live later this year.

In statements, ATB chief strategy and operations officer Curtis Stange said that his firm had used the technology to make overseas payments, while CIBC and NBAD expressed an overall enthusiasm for Ripple and the efficiencies it could enable.

The responses come as financial institutions continue to explore Ripple’s technology in ways that position the platform as an outlier among blockchain-based networks.

For example, Ripple partners have been vocal about their use of the platform to exchange more traditional payment messages rather than XRP, the digital asset that powers the Ripple consensus ledger (RCL). By doing so, partners say they are able to bring banks and market makers into a data sharing environment that reduces costs.

Larsen said he believes most of Ripple’s clients are using the RCL and Ripple Connect, which allows them to exchange know your customer (KYC) and compliance information prior to initiating transactions, but that over time, adoption of XRP, the digital asset may increase due to the cost savings it could provide.

For more on Ripple and its recent development, read our latest feature on the company and its market positioning.

Ripple office image via Shutterstock