Ripple plans to expand partnerships with Brazilian banks in 2020

Blockchain payments firm Ripple, which recently hit a valuation of $10 billion, is targeting more partnerships with Brazilian banks in the coming year.

The firm’s current focus is to coordinate with banks and regulators in the country to make remittances more efficient, Luiz Antonio Sacco, managing director of South America at Ripple, told Reuters Brazil.

Ripple launched operations in Brazil earlier this year and already has partnerships with Santander, Bradesco, Rendimento and other banks in the country. "With successive advances in Brazilian banking regulation to facilitate financial transactions, including international, opportunities here will grow greatly in the coming years," said Sacco.

Most cross-border payment transactions in Brazil are currently processed via SWIFT, which is expensive and can take up to a week, per the report. Sacco said transfers via Ripple could cost up to 10% of the amounts charged by banks.

The news follows Ripple's whopping $200 million Series C funding round earlier this month. Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said at the time that he expects the firm's customer base to grow 30-40% and transaction volume to increase over 600% in 2020. Ripple currently has over 300 customers for its global payments network RippleNet. Out of those 300 customers, “more than two dozen” use the firm's On-Demand Liquidity solution that leverages XRP.