Peru’s Interbank to utilize Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity for cross-border payments

Banco Internacional del Peru, also known as Interbank, recently announced that it will be utilizing Ripple’s XRP-powered payment product called On-Demand Liquidity (ODL). Previously, the bank used Ripple’s payment messaging system xCurrent. At the Ripple’s Swell conference in Singapore, Interbank’s blockchain specialist Joisie Mantilla said:

In Peru, we started thinking about cryptocurrencies when they first started appearing in the US. The bank has done a great job trying to attract talent that is really focused on innovation. And we have an innovation lab inside the bank.

So we work as a team that is allowed to fail and try different things, and we started working with xCurrent in that way. And now, after a year of working with xCurrent, we have decided to move forward this year and use the cryptocurrency to do our transactions.

Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity was formerly known as xRapid. On-Demand Liquidity utilizes Ripple’s cryptocurrency XRP to act as a link between two fiat currencies. Ripple stated that 24 of its 300+ clients have signed up to use ODL since its launch in October 2018. According to Mantilla, the bank is bound to use new technologies. She said that many financial institutions in Latin America are increasingly using advanced innovations in their infrastructure for cross-border payments.

The need that we have found is both our products of either corporate payments or just remittances are outdated. We’re not being competitive in the market anymore. There are so many fintechs, especially coming from Brazil or from the US itself that are targeting Peru as one of their next steps to flourish.

As per the Corporate Financial Institute (CFI), Interbank is one of the largest banks in Peru, with $41.3 billion in total assets. The company reported $2.9 billion in total revenue in 2017.