RippleNet will be used to pay for remittances between the UAE and Egypt after Ripple and the National Bank of Egypt doubled down on their relationship. This shows that distributed ledger technology provider Ripple is increasing its presence in the MENA region.
Despite the SEC lawsuit, Ripple partners with Egypt’s National Bank
While Ripple continues with its ongoing legal battle against the SEC in the US, the payment processor has partnered with Egypt’s largest and oldest bank – NBE. Using RippleNet and financial services provider LuLu, the National Bank of Egypt will process cross-border payments from the UAE to the African country.
Ripple and NBE doubled down on their relationship after signing the first agreement in February 2020. At the time, both parties planned to use a network of institutional payment providers. of Ripple called RippleNet to enhance remittance payments.
The blockchain-based payment processor announced its latest deal with Egypt’s oldest bank on May 19. It shows the involvement of a third party – financial services provider LuLu International Exchange is headquartered in the UAE, a division of LuLu Financial Group.
As a result, the three institutions will enable cross-border payments from the United Arab Emirates to Egypt. The country is the fifth-largest recipient of remittances after India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines, with more than $24 billion in such payments last year alone.
NBE’s Group Head for Financial Institutions and International Financial Services – Hesham Elsafty, stated:
“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.”
While the payment processor continues to expand its services outside of the US, the company is actually facing a lawsuit in the country in which it is based.
The Securities and Exchange Commission brought charges against Ripple in December 2020 for conducting an unregistered securities offering. Since then, their case has seen a number of developments, most of which actually happened with Ripple’s case.
For about a week in April, the Court first allowed Ripple to gain access to the SEC’s internal discussions about Bitcoin and Ethereum. Shortly thereafter, the Court sided with the company again, ordering the Commission to withdraw six subpoenas to withdraw its six subpoenas sent to banks requesting personal financial information from firm executives.
Source: AZCoin News
