American Express launched instant payments with Ripple technology

The American operator of payment cards American Express in cooperation with the Spanish bank Santander UK, launched a new payment corridor between the US and the UK using the distributed network Ripple. RippleNet technology has enabled AmEx customers located in the United States and using US dollars to connect with Santander bank customers in the UK using British pounds sterling.

This transatlantic corridor is positioned as a faster and safer way to make remote payments. Now the time for a money transfer between Great Britain and United States will not take several days, but only a few seconds.

The project marks the latest development for Amex in a year that has seen the credit giant join the Hyperledger blockchain consortium and partner with the bitcoin app provider Abra.

And for Ripple, which is coming off its recent Swell conference, the new work is another step toward letting its blockchain platform, tested throughout the first half of 2016, fly free.

For example, Ripple recently connected Europe and the U.S. via its work with Swedish bank SEB, which late last year revealed its intentions to connect Stockholm with New York City using Ripple. 

SEB platform has already conducted $630 million-worth of transactions since it launched into production in Q2 of this year.
While that project is advancing and is able to transact in nine seconds or less, it is for now — like the American Express project — restricted to what he calls a "pure" blockchain that does not require a cryptocurrency.

With Ripple's main competitor, Swift building its own blockchain using Hyperledger, and a rising tide of upstarts with their own variations on the cross-border payments use case, it's this use of Ripple's native cryptocurrency that Treacher thinks will elevate the company above the competition.