Volante Technologies, a software company specialized in the integration and processing of financial messages, data and payments within institutions and corporate enterprises, has launched a new interface with Ripple that enables global real-time settlements.
The new interface is part of Volante’s VolPay, a suite of products dedicated to enabling financial institutions and corporates to accelerate connectivity to a wide range of clearing and settlements mechanisms.
The interface directly connects with Ripple, allowing banks to transact directly and instantly with complete visibility and certainty of settlement.
“The world of payments is rapidly evolving and Volante’s role is to help ensure that our customers can quickly benefit from the adoption of emerging technologies across the payments space as and when they require it,” Neil Clarke, market engagement director of Volante Technologies, said in a statement.
“We commend Ripple on their innovative approach to bringing down cost and driving up choice for financial institutions and we look forward to helping more organizations connect to Ripple.”
Volante’s addition of a Ripple interface is in response to increasing interest from its clients and the market in general, the company indicated, and will enable financial institutions and corporate enterprises to take advantage of new payment flows and the business opportunities they offer.
The news comes at a time when banks are intensively experimenting with Ripple.
Earlier this year, three of Australia’s ‘Big Four’ banks, namely Westpac Banking Corporation, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), said they were considering the Ripple protocol to speed up and bring down the cost of currency transfers.
According to Rachel Slade, Westpac’s general manager of global transactional services, the bank has trialed the Ripple protocol by making low-value international payments to two other countries.
The solution they have developed is faster than other alternatives in the market, providing same or next-day payment, Slade said.
“This technology could be very beneficial to all Australians, providing a low-cost and fast method of sending low-value payments overseas,” she added.
Westpac, ANZ and CBA join Germany-based Fidor and two small US-based banks, as well as global bank payments network Earthpost, in adopting the Ripple protocol for payments.
Last week, Ripple, the firm that created and developed the payment protocol, announced that Santander InnoVentures, the investment arm of Santander Group, has joined the startup’s Series A funding round as an investor, bringing the round’s total to US$32 million.
“Santander has long been an advocate for modernizing banking infrastructure,” Mariano Belinky, managing partner of Santander InnoVentures, said in a statement. “Ripple and Santander share a common vision of the future of the industry, and we intend to jointly advocate it in the community.”
Other investors in the round include IDG Capital Partners, AME Cloud Ventures, ChinaRock Capital Management, China Growth Capital, Wicklow Capital, Bitcoin Opportunity Corp., Core Innovation Capital, Route 66 Ventures, RRE Ventures, Vast Ventures, and Venture 51.
Image credit: Ripple.com.