US Bank PNC To Use RippleNet For Cross-Border Payments

The eighth largest bank of the US, PNC, having assets worth roughly $400 billion, has turned out to be the country’s first bank to employ RippleNet blockchain network for cross border payments.

PNC Treasury Management is currently offering RippleNet-powered cross-border payment system to its commercial customers, asserting that the blockchain solution will offer them:

“The ability to receive a payment from an overseas buyer against their invoices instantly, transforming the way they manage their global account receivables and allowing them to better manage their working capital.”

Back in September 2018, PNC had disclosed its intention to utilize RippleNet and in particular xCurrent, Ripple’s liquidity solution. The announcement propelled the value of XRP, native currency of Ripple at that time. At the time of writing this article, XRP has gained 1.4% to trade at $0.2565.

It should be remembered that Breanne Madigan, Ripple’s head of Global Institutional Markets, has stated that price is not the only criteria looked into by the company executives.

A week before, Madigan had highlighted the 25% surge in XRP/MXN volumes in Mexican cryptocurrency exchange, despite the overall trading volume being down by 65%. Bitcoin, at that time, rose about 25%. Notably, MoneyGram payments in Mexico, using XRP, went live at that time. Madigan pointed out that rise in trading volume reflects real use case.

In June, Ripple bought 10% stake in MoneyGram, the second-largest remittance firm across the globe, as one of the step towards a $30 million collaboration with the entity. One of the main conditions in the stake deal is that MoneyGram would start using xRapid.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse asserted that a year from now onwards, the MoneyGram deal “will have a more consequential impact on the crypto markets than the Libra white paper.”

Earlier this week, Garlinghouse gave his clarification regarding several controversies related to the Ripple project. One among them is crypto investors’ frustration about what they view as negative impact of Ripple selling XRP to its customers. At the same time, an amendment was made to a class action suit against Ripple, alleging the firm of breaching federal law by selling XRP as an unregistered security.