Biz Builder Mike

You can't sail Today's boat on Yesterdays wind - Michael Noel

BitPay Announces Wallet App Feature Expansion With Wyre Integration

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Global blockchain payments provider BitPay announced on Wednesday a new feature enabling users to buy cryptocurrency from within the BitPay Wallet App using Wyre. According to BitPay, Customers can now buy Bitcoin and ETH using a debit card or Apply Pay through the mobile app.

While sharing more details about the integration and features, Stephen Pair, Co-Founder and CEO of BitPay, stated:

“Working with Wyre helps us to offer solutions to the market making the blockchain payments more accessible not just to power crypto users but those who are looking to crypto for the first time. The BitPay Wallet App enables users to take control of crypto through everyday spending, safer storage and managing funds across platforms.”

Liana Spano, Chief of Staff at Wyre, then shared:

“Crypto has revolutionized the way we deal with payments domestically and internationally by allowing the swift mobility of funds in an otherwise slow and outdated legacy system. In the midst of a global pandemic, it’s more important than ever to streamline global payouts to reach our partners in hard-hit communities as quickly as possible.”

BitPay went on to add that the option to purchase other cryptos like XRP and stablecoins will be available in the coming months as will purchases using Samsung and Google Pay. The integration with Wyre comes just a little over a month after BitPay announced it expanded its integration with cryptocurrency platform Coinbase to enable instant, no fee blockchain payments.

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Cross-Border Payments are on the “Cusp of Transformation” According to Executive from Fintech Ripple

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Marcus Treacher, the SVP of Customer Success at American Fintech Ripple, notes that the world’s cross-border payments market is highly fragmented. But he claims that international transactions are now being redefined by “the power of ISO standardization” and the innovative technology approach of RippleNet, which is a “decentralized” network of global financial institutions that are conducting transactions through Ripple’s payment networks.

Treacher reveals that cross-border payments are “on the cusp of transformation.” He claims that blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) and digital assets such as XRP can potentially offer a more “frictionless” global payments solution.

He notes:

“At Ripple, our mission is to remove friction from global payments and enable money to move the same way that information does today—digitally and instantly. We work with banks and payment providers to modernize legacy systems using blockchain and digital assets to make sending money around the world easier, faster and more reliable.”

He adds that Ripple’s goal is to offer real-time connections to RippleNet to banks and payment service providers. Treacher confirms that RippleNet follows the ISO2022 standard, allowing these organizations to send and receive funds on behalf of their clients and also between each other “immediately, with finality and transparency.” He claims that funds can be transferred quickly regardless of how much money is being sent or the currencies being used.

Treacher also mentions that being able to send money quickly across borders is not the only problem we need to address. He explains that funds must go to the intended or correct accounts in the right country and “at the right time to allow payments to actually flow.”

He adds:

“This need to pre-fund accounts is called the Liquidity Problem, and is one of the causes of hold-ups with cross-border payments. … Ripple has developed … On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) which uses … XRP to enable funds to be sent to destination accounts immediately – literally on-demand, rather than days beforehand.”

He claims that XRP is quite useful for conducting faster cross-border payments. It makes the process more affordable and overall more efficient, Treacher says. He explains that XRP is meant to serve as a bridge between two different fiat currencies, which should ensure that funds are transferred and received “in a given geography’s or user’s local currency instantaneously.”

He claims RippleNet is able to reduce the settlement period on international payments from 3 business days to only 3 seconds, which makes the process “truly frictionless.”

Treacher says that the crypto-asset market has been dominated or monopolized by high-net-worth individuals and “crypto enthusiasts.” But he claims that there are now an increasing number of indicators that show that institutional investors might be entering this market. He confirms that crypto markets recently set all-time highs in futures contracts’ open interest.

He points out that 60% of insitutions responding to Fidelity’s survey said they’d consider allocating a certain percentage of their porfolio to digital assets. He claims that this is a significant number when we consider the survey was completed before the COVID-19 outbreak. While not specifically mentioning Bitcoin (BTC), which Ripple considers a major threat and competitor to its business, Treacher notes that digital assets have been performing as well, if not better, than precious metals like gold.

He argues that banks and other financial service providers that are able to bring cross-border payment methods “into the modern world and provide a truly frictionless experience that reduces the many pain points consumers are facing today will emerge as leaders in tomorrow’s global payment industry.”

It’s true that Fintech firms like TransferWise are providing reliable and cost-effective ways for individuals and businesses to transfer funds, globally. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) has emerged as an increasingly popular way to transfer digital value in a peer to peer and permissionless manner.

However, Ripple has been the subject of several major lawsuits, with many XRP holders alleging that the company has been driving down the token’s price by selling large quantities of it, so that it can fund its business operations. During the past few years, the XRP market cap had briefly overtaken Ethereum (ETH) to become the second-largest digital asset by market share, trailing on Bitcoin (BTC).

But Ethereum’s market cap has now surged past the $40 billion mark, while XRP has dropped to fourth place (behind Tether’s USDT) with a market cap of only around $11 billion. While it’s true that Ripple has entered some notable partnerships, such as with MoneyGram, it remains unclear why a token like XRP is necessary when trying to send cross-border payments.

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Bank of America Remains one of the Largest Digital Financial Services Providers in the US, but Challengers like Current Offering Unique Products

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Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), a US-based money center bank and financial services company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, reportedly has over 66 million retail customers. The bank reveals that it handles over 10 billion user interactions per year and claims that 97% of them are digital – a solid percentage.

Most of the transactions are performed via mobile, online, or through interactive voice responses, the BoA confirms.

The bank handles around 19 million mobile banking logins per day. It’s also able to manage 5 million online banking logins every 24 hours. The BoA reveals that it now has more than 30 million mobile banking customers. Its AI-powered virtual assistant Erica now has 15 million active users who use it a combined 12 million times a month.

As first reported by American Banker, the BoA had nearly 12 million customers that had been using Zelle (as of July 2020), a person-to-person near-instant digital payments service that’s free to use and owned by major US banks such as BoA and J.P. Morgan Chase.

David Tyrie, head of digital, financial center strategy and advanced client solutions, points out that Erica’s user base is significantly “bigger than many of those headline-grabbing Fintechs.” For example, US-based digital challenger bank Chime only had 8 million users, Tyrie noted.

Emmett Higdon, digital banking director at Javelin Strategy & Research, remarked:

“Anything that can make it easier to do business with the bank is certainly going to contribute to growing your deposit base.”

Higdon argues that this is what makes Bank of America a “difficult” competitor. It’s a huge company to begin with, and its management “simply doesn’t sit still,” Higdon claims. He adds that usually “there’s very little time for its competitors to catch their breath or to catch up when they continue to push things forward.”

While the BoA, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, and other large US financial institutions may still have the most customers, it appears that digital banking startups like Current and Chime have found niche or special markets they can serve for now.

Stuart Sopp, founder and CEO at digital bank Current, has previously noted that the COVID-19 outbreak has shown how his company serves employees whose roles are considered essential during the global pandemic.

In June 2020, Sopp had confirmed that Current would remain focused on spending, as large banks are already “great” at lending and deposits. That same month, Current, a digital-only challenger bank, reported that users have topped one million members with both April and May 2020 generating the most accounts.

During the height of the Coronavirus lockdown, Current saw more than 100,000 new accounts created each month as demand rose for consumer-friendly banking options.

Sopp told Crowdfund Insider in a detailed interview (last month):

“COVID-19 has been an accelerant to digital. In terms of Fintech you will probably see a concentration of focus from incumbents. On the lower end of fintech, it is going to be hard to take big swings or get funding for big swings. I think the door is closing on the number of players and who is racing to take market share from banks. In the fintech community, I think there will be consolidation.”

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