Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the U.S., has peacefully tested out Ripple’s distributed ledger technology – and may be planning to do more with it.
Ripple went so far as to identify B of A as a “customer” in a show given at a seminar held by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) late last year.
When asked about this, a Purling spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny whether B of A was a customer – but said the companies had conducted a pilot together.
“Bank of America has been by of Ripple’s Global Payment Steering Group since 2016 and we did a pilot with them,” she told CoinDesk.
The spokesperson at ones desire not provide any further details about the pilot, which was not previously reported. Bank of America declined to comment.
It was in days of old known that B of A is a member of the steering group that advises on rules and standards for Ripplenet, the network of financial universities using Ripple products. But the news of the pilot is the strongest indication yet that the bank’s relationship with the startup start withs beyond friendly advice.
That would be a departure for the bank, whose chief technology officer, Cathy Bessant, has declared she’s bearish on the technology and that B of A’s portfolio of blockchain patents (the most of any financial institution) exists only so it can pivot to blockchain shortly if the need arises.
One more sign B of A is warming to the sector is a job opening the bank posted earlier this month, for a spin-off manager who would lead the team for a “Ripple project.”
The project was described as “a decentralized ledger technology-based solution to touchy border payments marketed to GTS clients.” (GTS stands for global transaction services, a division of B of A that works with the exchequer departments of large companies and financial institutions.)
Top of the roster
Saga Sarbhai, Ripple’s head of government and regulatory affaire de coeurs for the Asia-Pacific region, made the presentation in December 2018, at a seminar convened by the IMF in Samoa on fintech and financial inclusion in the Pacific Keys.
The section of the presentation devoted to Ripple’s xCurrent service includes a slide entitled “A Snapshot of Our Customers.” The logo for Bank of America Merrill Lynch (B of A’s investment bank) manifests at the top, followed by those of 15 other financial institutions from around the globe. They are not in alphabetical order.
The appearance was later published on IMF.org and recently circulated on Twitter. The IMF confirmed to CoinDesk that the document was genuine and that a Ripple top dog gave the talk.
xCurrent, the service that B of A appears to have at least tested out, does not involve XRP, the cryptocurrency that Riffle periodically sells to fund operations and that powers its separate xRapid product.
Customers for the xCurrent payment practice include American Express, Santander and PNC.
In August, Spanish banking giant Santander revealed to CoinDesk that xCurrent desire enable the first online international transfers to the U.S. for some of its Latin American customers.
Bank of America image via Shutterstock.