With more than 90% of countries exploring, developing and implementing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) as a way to increase financial inclusion and lower the cost and risk of domestic and cross-border payment processes, Ripple is announcing the Ripple CBDC Platform, which is described as “a frictionless end-to-end solution for central banks, governments, and financial institutions to issue their own central bank digital currency.”
Leveraging the power of the same blockchain technology used on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), the enhanced platform will now “allow its users to holistically manage and customize the entire life cycle of fiat-based central bank digital currency, transaction and distribution.”
The Ripple CBDC Platform “enables central banks and governments to bring the next level of digitization to their financial services while promoting access to millions of people around the world who are unbanked.”
Surangel Whipps Jr, President of the Republic of Palau, said:
“Partnering with Ripple to help create our national digital currency is part of our commitment to lead in financial innovation and technologies, which will provide the citizens of Palau with greater financial access.”
Developed to address multiple use cases including wholesale and retail CBDCs on a private ledger or issuing a stablecoin, the Ripple CBDC Platform offers its customers:
- Ledger technology – While still powered by the XRP Ledger, Ripple’s CBDC Platform is built on a new private ledger underpinned by the XRPL’s core energy-efficient technology.
- Issuer – Enabling issuers (e.g. central banks, monetary authorities or commercial banks) to manage the full life cycle of their fiat based digital currency, from minting and distribution all the way to redemption and destruction, all in a highly secure manner taking advantage of the XRP Ledger’s built-in multi-signing capabilities.
- Operator –This allows financial institutions who are holding significant amounts of the digital currency to manage and participate in inter-institutional settlement and distribution functions.
- End user wallets – Users of digital currencies such as corporate and retail end users will be able to hold their digital currencies securely and be able to pay and receive payment for goods and services in the same way other payment and banking apps provide this today, including for offline transactions and non-smartphone use cases.
James Wallis, VP of Central Bank Engagements & CBDCs, said:
“As a trusted partner to several central banks, we believe this platform will help solve problems for many central banks and governments who are devising plans and developing a technology strategy for CBDC Implementations. The innovative capabilities of the platform will help enable instant settlement of both domestic and cross-border payments, reduce risk, and improve the user experience of quickly sending and receiving digital currency on either side of a transaction.”
Ripple’s CBDC solutions “was recently top ranked by Juniper Research in their competitive leaderboard.”
The leaderboard ranked Ripple number 1 “in a field of 15 CBDC technology providers. Ripple’s CBDC solutions were also top-ranked in CB Insights’ Best Blockchain Cross-Border Payments & CBDCs Companies”
As covered, Ripple is “a crypto solutions company that transforms how the world moves, manages and tokenizes value.”
As noted in the update, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is “an open source, public and decentralized Layer 1 blockchain led by a global developer community.”