Chris Larsen Says XRP Could Bridge Dollar-Peso Payments

Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen described how XRP could connect dollar and peso payments in a U.S.-to-Mexico remittance flow, potentially reducing the need to pre-fund foreign-currency accounts.

Crypto commentator John Squire shared a clip of Larsen Friday, Oct. 23. In the clip, Larsen described a U.S. customer paying dollars to a remittance company, which converts them into XRP through Bittrex. After the XRP settles, Bitso converts it into Mexican pesos for deposit at a Mexican bank.

Larsen said the model could move value in one to two minutes, compared with days for conventional cross-border transfers. “It allows payment providers to lower the cost of liquidity for their global payments,” he said.

The example uses XRP as a bridge between dollars and pesos. That could reduce banks’ need to keep funds in nostro and vostro accounts, which are pre-funded foreign-currency accounts used to support international payments. Banks would not necessarily need to hold XRP themselves.