Ripple threat: IBM launches the Stellar-powered cross-border payment platform

When it comes to speaking of cross-border payments, we all think immediately of Ripple, the company responsible for the creation of the third largest cryptocurrency of the market, XRP. Ripple has taken charge of developing the best solutions to improve cross-border transactions, and a proof of that is their products xCurrent and xRapid, the later one being the one that carries the XRP token to source liquidity for financial institutions.

Ripple has made great efforts to spread its products across the financial sector, but truth be told, this hasn’t been exactly a reality. In fact, many institutions have embraced xCurrent or xVia, but when it comes to adopting xRapid, it just seems like they are not that interested.

On the other, we all know Stellar (XLM) has some strong-ties tied with the tech giant IBM for many months now, and as it seems, everything is ready on their side to finally put a serious competition to Ripple’s products. Let’s find out how it goes.

IBM announcement

Just a couple of days ago, IBM announced the launch of a new project dubbed “World Wire”, a cross-border settelment platform that aims to revolutionize the financial world. The project was created in collaboration with Stellar, and it was known that the platform would use Stellar’s blockchain protocols to function.

It will mainly offer the same things Ripple was trying to with its solutions; fast transactions, the capacity of taking thousands of operations in seconds, and low costs. But the most significant difference is that IBM asseverates that 97 percent of its customers are financial institutions, or in other words, the most relevant bank entities in the world.

It was also mentioned in recent IBM announcement that IBM networks manage at least 90 percent of the total credit card settlements, so this actually represents an excellent opportunity for the crypto sector concerning adoption, and of course, Stellar (XLM) would be the primary beneficiary.

IBM declared that with the help of Stellar protocols, the company would be able to offer financial institutions a solution to settle the cross-border transactions in just a matter of seconds. The company stated that:

“faster payment processing (simultaneous clearing and settlement), lower costs, increased efficiency and simplified payment and asset type form of transaction” were about to become a reality.

It also added,

“With 97% of the world’s largest banks as clients of IBM there remains little doubt that their new flagship payments system won’t be heavily advertised to their existing customer and client base”.

The target of the payment platform will be Fintech, central banks, financial institutions, and cryptocurrencies as issued assets. The Stellar blockchain will play a vital role in the success of the project as it will help to transact with digital assets in the form of IOUs, which of course, will dispel the possibilities of counterparty risks.

Conclusion

With this new IBM collaboration, Stellar (XLM) appears as a crypto that we all need to look up for; it will surely hit the moon very soon. As for now, the crypto doesn’t show that much of an increase with a price of $0.223, and a  decrease in the price by 0.87 percent in the last 24 hours, according to Coinmarketcap. But things turned into ‘big surprises’ on either side is just a matter of time in the world of digital currencies, so stay tuned.

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Global Coin Report and/or its affiliates, employees, writers, and subcontractors are cryptocurrency investors and from time to time may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency and read our full disclaimer.

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