Crypto firm Ripple Labs will expand its cross-border payments offering to Africa as it looks to expand its global footprint in the face of US regulatory pressure.
The company, whose XRP cryptocurrency is the seventh largest in the world by market capitalization, said it will partner with payments company MFS Africa, which operates in 35 countries on the continent.
MFS Africa will use Ripple’s on-demand liquidity product, known as ODL, which is based on XRP to support cross-border payments such as remittances, to help transact on its platform.
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Brooks Entwistle, senior vice president of global customer success, said financial news the move gives “a significant additional leg to the geography” of Ripple’s payment network.
The expansion comes as a lawsuit continues in the United States over Ripple. The Securities and Exchange Commission is suing the company for selling XRP as an unregistered security.
The lawsuit, which is worth $1.3 billion, effectively represents an argument over whether XRP should be classified as a commodity or a security. Ripple argues the former, while the SEC thinks the latter.
Entwistle said there was “no question” that the uncertainty of the case had accelerated the company’s move into new regions such as Africa.
“The business itself has grown dramatically outside of the US in these last 18 to 20 months,” he said.
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Meanwhile, he added that the recent collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which has shocked both the cryptocurrency industry and traditional finance, would affect everyone in the world of digital assets, even solutions-focused companies. payment like Ripple.
“We are all cushioned by some of the same negative winds,” he said, but added that the company was “eager to demonstrate [Ripple is] the largest possible use case for crypto.”
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