Ripple will partner with Chipper Cash, an African company with 5 million customers and transfers money across 9 African countries, to use RippleNet, a highly effective blockchain for making remittance payments across borders, twenty-four seven, and at a competitive speed.
Chipper, with the help of Ripple, will create a frictionless remittance service that uses blockchain technology, which otherwise would be a time-consuming project, to increase the efficiency of a pre-existing money transfer service.
Ripple considers the move to be essential for the future success of the blockchain, because XRP is designed for remittance services, but needs real-world adoption to make use of their remittance-making machine. Ripple is excited about their African partnerships because they have noticed an uptick in interest in the use of crypto for everyday activities. The partnership is of great interest to African stakeholders because the move further expands the opportunities for expanding local African economies. Ripple started off their blockchain with a focus on tokenizing fiat currencies, but has recently moved on to tokenizing real-world business models.
Chipper Cash was founded in 2018 and has facilitated frictionless money transfers across the African continent. The World Bank estimates that African remittances will exceed $100 billion in 2025, contributing a significant amount of incoming cash to African countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana.
Chipper Cash has been building up its business for many years and seems to offer exactly what Ripple is looking for: real-world structures and business relationships to integrate blockchain remittances. Chipper will be able to offer customers access to stablecoins that can be transferred at any time without the need for banks mediating or policing the transfers. The added benefit of stablecoins is that local restrictions on currency conversions can be overcome by using a single stablecoin over the entire network.
Ripple is capable of performing real-time remittances with lightning-fast speeds, without the need for intermediary banks. Remittances in Africa, however, often cost 8% of the money being transferred, a completely unreasonable fee to make people pay, and when compared with a blockchain like Ripple, which has been designed to handle low fees, the comparison cannot even be made. Chipper Cash is just one of the many businesses adopting the Ripple blockchain to handle international payments.
Chipper Cash expects great benefits from the use of blockchain, including better access for African businesses and financial inclusion for many communities. They are looking forward to rolling out the new project so that they can provide fast and cheap transactions.
In 2023, Ripple partnered with Onafriq, another African company, linking 27 African countries with the U.K. and Australia. Onafriq provides cross-border services, operates in over 30 countries, connects 500 million mobile wallets, and links 200 million bank accounts. Africa has been seeing many financial advances across the continent, and could benefit from more links to wider financial markets.
Onafriq now uses Ripple to extend its network to Australia (Zazi Transfer) and the U.K. (PayAngel). Ripple is used to transfer money from 27 African countries to these new members of the network. Ripple has been particularly effective in overcoming the traditional problems associated with cross-border transactions, such as slow speeds and high costs. The partnership with Onafriq has been a good learning curve for Ripple that may assist with the latest collaboration with Chipper Cash.
Ripple just settled their lawsuit with the SEC, paying $50 million instead of $125 million, benefiting from the change in politics regarding the Federal government’s ‘war on crypto’. The end of this lawsuit frees up a lot of time for Ripple to focus on more productive projects. The lawsuit was one of the largest in crypto history and was a hard-fought battle on both sides.
Ripple has provided cross-border payments for many years now, but has expanded their network further on the African continent. The role of remittances serves a practical service, and is a welcome application of crypto for many investors who are always looking for practical ways to implement crypto in the real world. African countries are often landlocked from resources, including financial services, and therefore benefit from a decentralized blockchain that transcends borders.
