The payments subsidiary of blockchain services company Ripple has partnered with Swiss bank Amina to provide it with access to its payment infrastructure.
According to a Friday Ripple Payments announcement, the company will allow Amina to “settle transactions more efficiently without relying on traditional payment infrastructure, making transactions faster, lower cost, and with increased reliability and transparency.” This builds on a previous relationship between the companies, with the bank’s integration of the Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin happening back in July.
The move also reinforces Ripple’s presence in Europe, with Amina being a Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority-regulated financial institution. The bank’s Austrian subsidiary also holds a license under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) granted by Austria’s Financial Market Authority in October.
Amina chief product officer Myles Harrison said “native web3 businesses often run into friction when working with legacy banking systems,” adding that stablecoins can help solve those issues. “This is particularly the case for cross-border stablecoin transactions which traditional banks are yet to widely adopt.”
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Banks need crypto services for crypto companies
Harrison explained that the bank’s clients “need payment infrastructure that can handle both fiat and stablecoin rails simultaneously,” which traditional banking networks cannot provide for. Ripple Payments, on the other hand, allowed Amina to offer such services, which led to “reducing cross-border friction and helping our crypto-native clients maintain their competitive edge.”
Ripple’s managing director for the United Kingdom and Europe Cassie Craddock said that the collaboration lets Amina “serve as the on-ramp for digital asset innovators into traditional financial infrastructure.” He added that Ripple Payments provides a “bridge between fiat and blockchain” that enables seamless stablecoin payments.
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Ripple onboards traditional finance onchain
This is just the latest partnership in which Ripple injected blockchain capabilities into an institution engaged in traditional finance. According to mid-November reports, the company is spending about $4 billion to combine prime trading, treasury tools, payments, and custody to take on traditional finance.
Ripple’s ambitions are also global. Earlier this month, Ripple Labs received approval from Singapore’s central bank to expand its payment activities. This enables the company to offer regulated token services, end-to-end payments and growth across Asia-Pacific.
At the end of November, RLUSD was also cleared for use by institutions in Abu Dhabi after winning recognition as an Accepted Fiat-Referenced Token by the local watchdog.