Ripple and Intermex Partnership Enhances Cross-border Remittances Between U.S and Mexico

On Feb. 4, 2020, Ripple announced that it had entered into a remarkable partnership with International Money Express, Inc. (Intermex), a company that offers remittance services in South America. 

The agreement will see Intermex utilize Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product via RippleNet, the blockchain startup’s flagship product that connects financial institutions and enables them to send currency around the globe instantly, reliably, and on the cheap.

ODL uses Ripple’s native digital coin XRP as the bridge currency for transfers in varying currencies.

Intermex CEO Bob Lisy praised the remarkable partnership, as he believes it will help in improving efficiency. He stated:

“We are pleased to have begun a partnership with the Ripple team, and look forward to implementing new solutions on RippleNet and ODL to help drive growth and deliver greater efficiency.”

Intermex is one of the largest U.S. to Mexico remitter service providers that process over 30 million transactions between the countries annually. 

The partnership between Ripple and Intermex is another testament to the blockchain firm’s ability to ink deals with companies in the existing financial system.

This Partnership Is Good for Remittance Industry

Ripple’s technology will allow Intermex to reduce costs and improve customer experience. The money transfer flows into Mexico reached around $36 billion in 2019 with the U.S as the primary source of inbound t transfers into the country.

However, the cost of sending money across borders is very high, with some remittance service providers charging fees of more than 5%.

The new partnership is anticipated to cut back settlement time and lower a few of the prices. It will also give Intermex entry to Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service, which makes use of XRP as a real-time bridge between sending and receiving currencies, accelerating settlement durations and decreasing prices to “fractions of a penny.”

Ripple Partnership with Intermex Boosts XRP

Following the announcement about their partnership with Interemex, the price of XRP has increased by more than 11 percent over the past 24 hours, which allowed it to breach the $0.28 level for the first time in 2020.

Moreover, on Feb. 3, XRP price jumped to more than $0.25 after Ripple released 500 million tokens from its escrow account.

Part of XRP’s success depends on the partnerships Ripple has with financial service providers. Ripple has formed more than 100 partnerships with financial institutions such as American Express, SBI Holdings, Moneygram, Western Union, and more.

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