Ripple and Travelex partner up to launch crypto payments in Brazil

Crypto technology firm Ripple and Latin American Bank Travelex inked a new partnership on August 18 to spread instant cross-border crypto payments in Brazil using Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution.

Ripple’s ODL allows for instant cross-border transfers for a meager settlement cost. The ODL also doesn’t require pre-funded capital in the destination market. The deal made Travelex the first Latin American bank to utilize Ripple’s ODL solution.

Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, said that the company’s goal was to deliver real value and offer utility from day one. He said:

“Brazil is a key market for Ripple given its importance as an anchor to business in Latin America, its openness to crypto and country-wide initiatives that promote fintech innovation. […] we are excited to collaborate with an innovative partner like Travelex Bank to help move money more efficiently for the benefit of its customers across Brazil.”

Travelex Bank is the first foreign exchange bank in the region and operates entirely digitally. The bank said it has been looking for ways to enhance the customer experience for its users, who mostly have limited funds to spare for settlement costs. By utilizing Ripple’s ODL, Travelex will be able to offer instant international transfers 24/7, for very cheap.

The function will support payments between Brazil and Mexico at launch and will gradually expand to cover more regions in the future.

Payments in Cryptosphere

Crypto payments have been a hot topic for crypto companies and the community since the beginning of 2022.

In April 2022, a study reflected on the community’s adoption of payments and revealed that 40% of young adults (18 to 35-year-olds) want to use crypto as a payment method.

Responding to the demand, prominent crypto companies have been making partnerships and taking steps toward offering crypto payments to their customers.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta revealed its investments in crypto payments in May when it filed a trademark application for the name “MetaPay.” In June, Binance and Triple-A announced their partnership to co-create a global crypto payment gateway.

Giants from the traditional finance sphere also took a step towards enabling crypto payments. Paypal launched a beta version of its crypto payment solution in June; Mastercard partnered with a Brazilian e-commerce platform to allow crypto payments on the merchant’s front end; Stripe re-added a Bitcoin payment option to its services; Banking Circle launched a new feature to enable USDC payments.