- Global payments provider Convera is upgrading its services with a new collaboration with Ripple.
- The move allows the company to streamline its payment processes, improving efficiency and speeding up settlements.
Convera (formerly Western Union Business Solutions) announced partnering with Ripple to enable stablecoin payments. The company admitted that the move comes in response to growing customer demand.
The New Convera and Ripple Partnership
The strategic collaboration generally allows Convera and Ripple to leverage their combined market strength, thereby expanding their market penetration. Ripple offers its deep liquidity, near-real-time payment settlement, and digital asset infrastructure capabilities to Convera for seamless cross-border transactions. Meanwhile, Convera’s trusted global network, FX expertise, and customer experience provide a vehicle for Ripple to grow its retail and institutional reach.
The partnership focuses on building Convera’s stablecoin sandwich model. As the name implies, a stablecoin serves as the settlement intermediary in its design. It starts with the sender paying in local fiat currency, which the platform then converts to a stablecoin. After that, the system converts the stablecoin again to match the recipient’s local currency.
Convera currently supports more than 140 currencies across 200 countries and territories. The company plans to expand its support to more currencies to improve its services.
Why It Matters
The framework reduces wire transfers from days to hours, or even less, depending on network traffic. Additionally, it bypasses correspondent banks and other regional bottlenecks, leading to a significant reduction in transaction costs, particularly conversion and other service fees.
What’s more, the system offers utmost transparency for the parties involved. On-chain data already serves as a receipt because it reflects all the procedures and details about the transfer. The measure enables the sender and receiver to monitor and verify payment and remittance flows in real time.
Patrick Gauthier, CEO of Convera, stated that their partnership with Ripple takes advantage of the growing presence of digital currencies, particularly stablecoins. It comes in response to evolving customer demand and heightened competition in the payments sector.
“With the growing presence and use of digital currencies such as crypto and stablecoins, Convera has maintained a thoughtful approach by listening to what our customers want while watching this space continue to mature,” said Patrick Gauthier, CEO of Convera. “We knew we needed a trusted, visionary partner that can help us meet our customers where they are in their journey. Ripple is a clear leader in the crypto space and a natural fit for Convera.”
Gauthier is bullish on the partnership and expects it to drive the continued growth of Convera and Ripple.
