Paris Fintech Forum 2019 - Will SWIFT Walk Away From Ripple?

The upcoming European fintech forum event to take place in Pairs calls for all the participation of all key players in the international fintech industry. The forum is to take place on the 29th and 30th January with huge payment processing companies such as SWIFT and Ripple expected to be there.

There will also be some selected number of speakers at the event including the CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse and the SWIFT CEO, Gottfried Leibbrandt. The two were both selected as speakers to discuss the future in the fintech industry. Rumours surfaced regarding SWIFT executives who have been getting shaky in regards to the participation in the upcoming event but not due to stage fright. Executives were apparently getting cold feet because of the continuous competition between the two companies.

Don’t be mistaken, this isn’t a ‘David and Goliath’ situation, it’s more like, ‘Goliath and Goliath’.

SWIFT has been a big player in the payment processing game and controlled more than 70 percent of the division's payments. This was until Ripple got involved. The operations Ripple undergo are basically through blockchain technology which offers faster and cheaper means of cross-border payment processing. As reported by ZyCrypto, this places them in competition with each other, with SWIFT fighting not to lose ground to Ripple. Speculation came out months ago that the two would shake hands and get on with their business, but this never happened.

Even though the two fintech firms are competitors, it wasn’t so stiff until the CEO of Ripple publicly declared during his interview with Bloomberg that Ripple isn’t partnering with SWIFT but instead taking over from them. “What we’re doing and executing on a day-by-day basis is, in fact, taking over SWIFT.”

Things might have turned out differently though if SWIFT had adopted blockchain technology in time. There are so many banks and payment processors on the SWIFT network which are signing on with Ripple. It is natural if SWIFT executives aren’t ready to confront their fears just yet, but the time will come. Maybe at the European fintech forum.

Everything seems to be pointing to SWIFT being ready to feature in the upcoming fintech conference without making much noise.

What are your thoughts? Let us know what you think down below in the comments!