American Express Opens First Blockchain Corridor With Ripple Tech

bridge, norway
Back in 1927, pilot Charles Lindbergh could have flown cash across the Atlantic Ocean faster than most payments happen over that same body of water today.

Whereas Lindbergh completed his historic solo flight from New York City to Paris in 33 hours and 30 minutes, a typical bank transaction today takes one to two days using Swift, and a typical ACH transaction can take twice as long.

So, the news today that American Express has opened up a payments corridor using Ripple that can send money from England to the U.S. in just a few seconds has been a long time coming.

A partnership with Spanish bank Santander, the new corridor is being positioned by Ripple's global head of strategic accounts, Marcus Treacher, as an obviously faster, but also safer way to send payments across the Atlantic.

A former Swift board member, Treacher told CoinDesk:

"Whereas beforehand Amex had to send Swift messaging to the banks to request the payment to happen, now Amex is connected directly to the banks using Ripple and Ripple's cryptography, so that the movement of value happens immediately."
Run by American Express's foreign exchange international payments (FXIP) business, the corridor connects Amex customers in the U.S. using U.S. dollars to Santander bank accounts in the UK using British pounds – all via Ripple's blockchain, RippleNet.

According to Treacher, the integration routes non-card payments through the shared payment network for nearly instant, auditable cross-border payments.