Ripple Vs Visa: Who’s Winning The Payment System Race?

Ever since 2008, big payment processing firms have been one step behind. Some of them are attempting to make a comeback and capitalise on some emerging technologies like cryptocurrency and blockchain. Visa, PayPal and even Uber are looking into Facebook’s new cryptocurrency as an investment with other big names moving into blockchain to seek new adventures.

Connecting Payments

Visa seems to be encroaching into Ripple’s realm as a global payment processing utility. The aim of Visa's new product - Connect - is to allow for cross-border payments with a simple and transparent blockchain based system. As reported by the San Francisco Tribe:

“This platform was previewed actually in 2016, and was scheduled to launch in mid-2018 for commercial use. Although, there were delays and now the system is finally launching fully with the blockchain based transaction system. The key feature that this system is offering is direct bank to bank transaction system.”

The use of a blockchain-based solution is a big milestone for the industry and but it originally turned down crypto and blockchain due to being seen as nothing but a scam. This was only a few years ago too.

At the end of last year, Visa said:

“We are excited to announce our work with innovators from Commerce Bank in the United States, Shinhan Bank in South Korea, Union Bank of Philippines and United Overseas Bank in Singapore. We are beginning to process bank to-bank test transactions with a few of these partners, with others to follow soon, as we gear up for the commercial launch of Visa B2B Connect.”

Ripple vs Visa: Endgame

Whereas the fight between Ripple and Visa isn’t quite like Endgame, the two are clashing horns in the payments arena. Their target customers will be high-value corporate clients at first to run pilot tests with several solutions. After use cases and test runs are completed with a few willing clients, it will be pushed forward into Ripple’s market, the big banks.

Teaming up with a huge payment processing firm like Visa makes a lot of sense for these banks because it is a trusted brand with a clean history behind it.

But Ripple would be a lot more cost-effective and has already got a huge network behind it testing the xRapid system.