Ripple Blockchain Payment from Canada to Germany Takes 20 Seconds
A collaboration between Canadian financial institution ATB Financial, German software multinational SAP, blockchain startup Ripple Labs and Geman bank ReiseBank AG has demonstrated the potential of blockchain technology, wherein an international payment took 20 seconds as opposed to several working days.
German multinational software firm SAP has announced the results of an international cross-border payment using a SAP-developed cloud platform and payment engine while transacting on the Ripple blockchain network. A payment of CAD $1,000 was transferred successfully from Canadian financial institution ATB Financial, to ReiseBank AG, in Germany.
SAP and Ripple engineers worked with a team at ATB Financial to design and build a proof-of-concept prototype in nine working days. The working prototype connects the SAP HANA Cloud platform, an open platform-as-a-service and the SAP payment engine with Ripple’s blockchain network. The successful cross-border transaction was accomplished with mobile user interface provided by SAP, through which the payment was transferred.
Also read: Ripple: It’s Time for a Block chain Cross-Border Payment Network
ATB Financial is notable for its endeavor in embracing new innovative technologies, having already migrated its entire legacy banking system to a new SAP-engineered core system in 2011.
In a statement, Curtis Stange, chief strategy and operations officer at ATB Financial spoke about the real-time, near-instantaneous cross-border payment.
Although we are very much still in the early stages of blockchain adoption, it was highly encouraging to see in a true demonstration the potential it has in transforming cross-border payments, making them almost instantaneous and reducing potential errors.
Furthermore, he revealed that the next phase of blockchain application at ATB will involve a consumer-centric endeavor. “The next stage for us, working with SAP and Ripple, will be to understand how the front-end experience should work for the benefit of our customers,” Stange added.
The successful payment, SAP calls, is the “first international blockchain payment from Canada to Germany.” It might certainly count as the first-known private blockchain payment transfer using Ripple technology, as Bitcoin, based on the original and open ledger blockchain has facilitated and enabled cross-border payments without a central authority for years.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
