The cross-border payments firm is offering clients a turnkey network of market makers, exchanges, and OTC desks to make it easy to offer crypto exchange services.
International payments firm Ripple has announced a new product designed to give financial institutions an easy way to offer cryptocurrency trading to customers.
Ripple Liquidity Hub is a turnkey backend solution that will provide enterprise clients "a groundbreaking new way for enterprises to easily and efficiently source digital assets from the broader crypto market," Ripple said in a Nov. 10 blog post.
This means using smart order routing to give clients access to a network of market makers, exchanges, and over-the-counter (OTC) trading desks that can provide digital assets at the best possible prices, the firm said.
The technology is an offshoot of its two-year-old On-Demand Liquidity product that lets financial institutions bypass the long and expensive legacy system of making cross-border payments by buying, transferring, and immediately selling the XRP cryptocurrency.
Ripple Liquidity Hub will be available in 2022, according to RippleNet General Manager Asheesh Birla. He said:
"It makes perfect sense that as they prepare for a crypto-first world, our customers would want access to the same trusted one-stop shop for buying, selling and holding crypto assets that has powered our own extensive work with financial institutions."
While its cross-border payments network, RippleNet, uses the XRP cryptocurrency so closely associated with the fintech firm that the token is often called "Ripple," the service will not be limited to one token.
Along with XRP, Ripple Liquidity Hub will support Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic and Bitcoin Cash — with more digital assets added in the future.
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In the Crosshairs
Ripple is currently battling the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has sued the company and two of its top executives for $1.3 billion over what the agency says were illegal sales of an unregistered security — XRP — over the course of a decade.
If it goes to court, Ripple will be the first company in the crypto space to fight the SEC over the agency's belief that virtually every cryptocurrency should be classified as a security. A number of ICO issuers have made multimillion-dollar settlements with the SEC and a few — most notably messaging service Telegram for its TON blockchain — imploded when trying to fight back.
The SEC recently won the backing of the U.S. Treasury Department and other agencies over its claim to have wide authority to regulate stablecoins.
