UAE Exchange Partners With Ripple

UAE Exchange, one of the largest payment providers in the Middle East, announced that it has signed a deal with Ripple to join its blockchain for cross-border payments.

UAE, which is based in Abu Dhabi, will now become a member of RippleNet, a decentralized global network of banks and payment providers that utilizes Ripple’s technology to deliver instant, on-demand and low-cost global payments services to their customers.

“Incorporating Ripple’s blockchain technology into our payments systems will bring customers an enhanced, new payments experience,” said Promoth Manghat, CEO of UAE Exchange Group. “The early adoption of this game-changing technology allows us to offer a competitive service, as it will have an impact on the speed and cost of cross-border transactions. We are proud to deliver the future of payments with Ripple.”

Last October, Ripple revealed that RippleNet was providing services to more than 100 financial institutions.

“We are pleased to announce that Bexs Banco, Airwallex, Credit Agricole, Cuallix, Currencies Direct, dLocal, IFX, Krungsri, RAKBANK and TransferGo, among others, have joined RippleNet,” the company said in a statement. “The newest members can count themselves among SBI Remit, SEB and Siam Commercial, who also use RippleNet to send cross-border payments.”

All of these additions comes as the company faces more competition from its former collaborator, R3, which is building its own cross-border B2B payments solution inspired by blockchain. R3 will partner with 22 member banks on the project, including U.S. Bank, TD Bank, Barclays, BBVA, CIBC, Commerzbank, DNB, HSBC, Intesa, KBC, KB Kookmin Bank, KEB Hana Bank, Natixis, Shinhan Bank and Woori Bank.

“We chose to focus on solving inefficiencies in key corridors where payment flows are significant and growing,” Dilip Rao, global head of infrastructure innovation for Ripple said about the partnership with UAE. “Adding a market leader like UAE Exchange to RippleNet will bring instant, certain, low-cost payments to the millions of retail customers in the UAE who send money abroad.”