The fourth largest payment processor in China, LianLian has announced that they will officially be partnering with Ripple in order to make use of the company's blockchain technology for cross border payments.
The hope is that RippleNet, as the technology is known, will now officially have a gateway into the Chinese and Asian payments industry.
LianLian is a company that is registered in Hong Kong and has over 150 million users. They are often seen as one of the largest payment processors for the likes of Amazon, Ali Express and Ebay. As such, a large amount of their payments originate in another currency.
Terms of the Agreement
Under the terms of the agreement between LianLian and Ripple, they will make use of the xCurrent platform for all of their settlement requirements. This platform will allow LianLian to connect to other Asian banks who are using the RippleNet network already.
Those consumers who bank with these other institutions will be able to easily and effectively buy products on a large Chinese e-tailer in their own currency. Given how fast and efficient Ripple payments take place, this is beneficial for all parties.
Emi Yoshikawa who is Ripple's director of Joint Venture Partnerships had the following to say about the announcement:
With RippleNet, LianLian will now be able to provide merchants and consumers with on-demand payments, which they weren’t able to before. We look forward to connecting other RippleNet members to LianLian
The sentiment was also shared by the senior team at LianLian. The Chairman of the company's board saw the partnership as an opportunity for them to increase their market share in the China with the instant blockchain powered payments in 19 currencies. He went on to say:
We look forward to working with Ripple to power payment flows between China and RippleNet members in new markets
Implications for Ripple
As the price of the XRP token has soared and then fallen in line with other cryptocurrencies, the company has been forging new partnerships and growing out the Ripple network.
They had recently partnered with the large money remittance company, MoneyGram which would see them using the xRapid protocol to speed up their remittances at partner banks.
There was also the recent announcement that Ripple had signed a deal with Santander where they would develop a mobile application which would allow users to effortlessly send payments in different currencies.
Indeed, it has also emerged today in a presentation by Brad Garlinghouse at the Yahoo AMS that Ripple is working with the Bank of England as well as another unnamed central bank.
All this points to increased adoption of Ripple by large financial institutions. It shows that there is indeed a use case for the technology and that banks and payment businesses have as much to gain from blockchain technology as traditional cryptocurrencies.
Although markets are currently at monthly lows, these developments could no doubt put positive pressure on XRP in the next few months.
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