Ripple launches in Brazil as it sets foot in South America

Ripple has announced that it has plans to launch operations in South America’s largest country, Brazil. According to the announcement on Tuesday Ripple is "bringing on seasoned fintech entrepreneur and executive Luiz Antonio Sacco as managing director to drive strategy and build the Ripple ecosystem in the region."

The company made the announcement during the International Congress & Exhibition of Information Technology for Financial Institutions. The event that started today will take three days. The CIAB Febraban is being held in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Ripple attended to share more information about RippleNet, xRapid as well as the company’s global payments network that currently "makes it easy for financial institutions and payment providers to send cross-border payments worldwide."

According to a press release shared to news outlets, the SVP of Global Operations said in a statement:

"The company is experiencing rapid customer growth across all markets, and is launching in Brazil in response to high customer demand in South America. We are fortunate to have Luiz on board to expand our presence in the region and help our customers address the challenges of cross-border payments.”

According to Ripple, RippleNet has already signed over a dozen Brazil-based financial institutions and other money transfer providers, for example Santander Brazil, BeeTech Global and Banco Brazil. A comment from the Managing Director for Brasil and South America, Luiz Antonio reads:

“We’re excited to grow our ecosystem in the region and bring additional financial institutions onto RippleNet to help provide excellent, efficient cross-border payment experiences for their customers. Brazil is a leader in fintech innovation and positioned to forge a path for the rest of Latin America to follow.”