Will Visa and Western Union Collaboration Weaken Ripple From Pushing for Institutional Adoption?
Ripple has been in the forefront working to bring cryptocurrency to the mainstream, pushing for institutional adoption not just for its native token XRP but for all digital assets. But now the Fintech crypto and blockchain adoption crusader may encounter a formidable force of Visa and Western Union partnership.
On Monday the 10th of June, the New York Stock Exchange, announced an agreement by two giants in the payment processing industry, Visa and Western Union. This agreement indicates collaboration between the two.
It states that Western Union will implement Visa’s real-time 1 push payment platform, known as Visa-direct. This integration will bring speed and accuracy to cross border payment processing.
Visa is interested in enhancing international payment processing. Activating Visa Direct one will enable Western Union to offer customers a faster remittance service onto cards. Customers will be able to receive and send money in a seamless and transparent manner, on the new platform.
According to the global head of push payments at Visa, Bill Sheley, the two financial technology companies are coming together to implement growth in the cross-border payment processing, to both businesses and consumers. The estimated reach is more than 200 countries and 130 currencies.
He further stated that this collaboration of the leading payment processing industry leaders will create exceptional value and better experience to receivers and senders across the globe.
Speaking on the aim of this collaboration, Jean Claude Farah, the executive vice president at Western Union, stated that it will combine the best of the two companies, leveraging on their large retail network to provide a world-class payments platform. It will enable the customers to transact on a fast and user-friendly platform that will allow them to transfer funds into millions of account across the globe.
Ripple has been able to strike SWIFT’s performance in cross-border payment processing but this partnership may be a tough nut to crack. The collaboration aim is set on the same objective Ripple is trying to achieve, which is making cross-border payment processing a better experience.
The two giants already have a large network, but Ripple’s hope will only lie on the blockchain technology and its ability to process transactions faster, at a cheaper rate. This collaboration is really threatening for Ripple.
