LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM and SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwired – Dec 4, 2014) –Earthport and Ripple Labs today announced a global partnership which will see the two companies use their combined expertise and technology to offer real-time cross-border bank payments. Earthport’s new offering will integrate the Ripple protocol alongside its payments network and platform, bringing a wider choice to financial institutions, in particular to optimize their liquidity management and minimize the need to pre-fund a payment account while executing cross-border transactions.

Growth in international trade, e-commerce, and demographic shifts in population have driven both corporate and consumer demand for faster, cost-efficient, reliable and transparent cross-border payment solutions. Earthport has been strategically developing its global payments network, platform and compliance processes to provide its clients a robust, secure and efficient cross-border payments solution. Ripple’s pioneering payments protocol allows for the secure transfer of funds in any currency in real-time with no reserves required. This partnership brings together the Ripple protocol and Earthport’s global network to provide clients with a friction-free cross-border payments solution with reduced liquidity management costs, while maintaining the robust standards of compliance that regulators expect.

“We constantly evaluate new technologies to reduce costs and delays associated with global bank payments for our clients, but require these innovations to meet our high, exacting standards for compliance,” said Hank Uberoi, CEO of Earthport. “Ripple is a new technology and, once integrated in our payments service could bring benefits in efficiency and speed to global transfers. Earthport will apply its existing compliance framework, rule sets and secure payments network to any Earthport clients transacting using the Ripple protocol.”

“Traditional cross-border payments are inefficient today because both the technology and compliance frameworks underpinning them were built country by country decades ago,” said Chris Larsen, co-founder and CEO of Ripple Labs, the developer of the Ripple protocol. “The Earthport and Ripple partnership brings together the leading global payments and technology infrastructures to immediately transform and modernise the global payments industry.”

Earthport will share in the upside of Ripple as adoption of the protocol grows.

About Earthport
Earthport plc is a regulated financial services organisation and the largest open network for global bank payments through its cross-border payments infrastructure.

Through its innovative payments framework, specifically designed for high volumes of low value cross-border payments, Earthport provides a cost-effective and transparent service for secure international payments. Earthport’s clients include banks, money transfer organisations, payment aggregators, e-commerce and foreign exchange businesses. Awarded B2B Payments Innovation of the Year 2014 at the second annual FStech/Retail Systems Payments Awards, Earthport’s well established payments infrastructure clears and settles payments directly to banked beneficiaries in 65 countries on behalf of its clients.

The company is headquartered in London and is listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) on the London Stock Exchange. It operates globally with additional regional offices in Dubai and New York. Earthport plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Service Regulations 2009 for the provision of payment services. To learn more, please visit www.earthport.com and follow us via RSS or on social channels, Twitter @Earthport, LinkedIn, YouTube and Slideshare.

About Ripple Labs
Ripple Labs developed the Ripple protocol, an Internet for money that enables the free and instant exchange of anything of value. The San Francisco-based startup is funded by Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, IDG Capital Partners, Core Innovation Capital, FF Angel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bitcoin Opportunity Corp. and Vast Ventures.

Named one of 2014’s 50 Smartest Companies by MIT Technology Review, Ripple Labs’ team of 80 is comprised of deeply experienced cryptographers, security experts, distributed network developers, Silicon Valley and Wall Street veterans. They contribute code to the open-source software, as well as develop tools for and recruit financial institutions and payment networks to use Ripple. The team shepherds a movement to evolve finance so that payment systems are open, secure, constructive and globally inclusive.

About Ripple
Ripple is an Internet protocol that interconnects all the world’s disparate financial systems to enable the secure transfer of funds in any currency in real time — consider it an Internet for money. As settlement infrastructure, Ripple transforms and enhances today’s financial systems. Ripple unlocks assets and provides access to payment systems for everyone, empowering the world to move value like information moves today. For more information about Ripple, please visit http://www.ripple.com.