Ripple’s fallout with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States did not stop the firm from expanding. While the platform has already revealed plans on diving into South East Asian shores, its latest announcement made it clear that it would soon be walking on the deserts of Egypt.
In its most recent announcement, Ripple shed light on a partnership with the National Bank of Egypt [NBE]. With this collaboration, the platform intended to enter Egypt. The world witnessed the emergence of digitalization right after the Covid-19 breakout. Ripple seemed to be aiding this by allowing users to spruce up cross-border payments. NBE with its latest partnership hopes to ease this process.
Ripple to spruce up cross-border payments
The announcement noted that Egypt had several citizens working outside the countries who in turn sent back home money. The country saw a whopping $24 billion inflows in 2020. While pointing out the slow and pricey payment infrastructure that is in place, NBE would reportedly be employing RippleNet as well as LuLu International Exchange.
The Managing Director of South Asia and MENA, Navin Gupta addressed the same and pointed out the importance of sending and receiving money “quickly, reliably and inexpensively.” He added,
“Ripple is proud to partner with NBE and LuLu Exchange to bolster the MENA region’s financial infrastructure and provide a frictionless cross-border payments experience for the Egyptian community.”
With Egypt sitting in the top five countries that receive the most overseas remittances, the Group Head for Financial Institutions and International Financial Services at NBE, Hesham Elsafty suggested that the bank aims to enhance the existing infrastructure.
Elsafty added,
”NBE’s partnership with Ripple will help to improve overall efficiency by enabling NBE to establish new alliances across wider markets with reduced cost and quicker integration time. We are very excited to announce our new partnership with Ripple and Lulu which we believe will contribute to a further acceleration of the Egypt-UAE remittances corridor.”