The payments subsidiary of blockchain services company Ripple has partnered with Swiss bank Amina to provide it access to its payments infrastructure.
According to a Ripple Payments announcement on Friday, the company will allow Amina to “settle transactions more efficiently without relying on traditional payment infrastructure, making transactions faster, lower cost, and with greater reliability and transparency.” This builds on a previous relationship between the companies, with the bank’s integration of the Ripple USD stablecoin (RLUSD) in July.
The move also reinforces Ripple’s presence in Europe, as Amina is a financial institution regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority. The bank’s Austrian subsidiary also holds a license under the European Union’s Markets in Cryptoassets Regulation (MiCA) granted by the Austrian Financial Market Authority in October.
Myles Harrison, chief product officer at Amina, said that “web3 native companies often have friction when working with legacy banking systems,” adding that stablecoins can help solve those problems. “This is particularly the case for cross-border stablecoin transactions that have not yet been widely adopted by traditional banks.”
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Banks need crypto services for crypto companies
Harrison explained that the bank’s customers “need a payment infrastructure that can simultaneously handle both fiat and stablecoin lanes,” something that traditional banking networks cannot provide. Ripple Payments, on the other hand, enabled Amina to offer such services, leading to “reducing cross-border friction and helping our crypto-native customers maintain their competitive advantage.”
Ripple UK and Europe CEO Cassie Craddock said the collaboration allows Amina to “serve as a gateway for digital asset innovators into traditional financial infrastructure.” He added that Ripple Payments provides a “bridge between fiat and blockchain” that enables seamless payments with stablecoins.
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Ripple brings traditional finance on-chain
This is just the latest partnership in which Ripple injected blockchain capabilities into an institution dedicated to traditional finance. According to reports in mid-November, the company is spending around $4 billion to combine premium operations, treasury, payments and custody tools 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.
In late November, RLUSD was also authorized for use by institutions in Abu Dhabi after gaining recognition as an accepted token with reference to Fiat by the local watchdog.
