Moran Details Ripple’s Expansion Plans In Asia

By Prashant Jha

Dan Moran, who serves as the Head of Regulatory Relations for Europe of Ripple Inc. recently elaborated on the company’s strategy to penetrate into the Asian market, and feed the gaping void in Asia’s interest in tech solutions. Speaking at a London blockchain summit recently, on Friday, Moran spoke of how great a potential lies untapped in the Asian market.

Moran was addressing those gathered at the CryptoCompare & MJAC London Blockchain Summit and he said that Ripple, with its functionality, can hugely contribute to meet the needs of a continent of several emerging economies. If you have read our guide to Ripple, you would know that Ripple is a payment protocol meant to make cross-border payments and banking services accessible to unbanked, underdeveloped communities. Clearly, since Asia has a large population of those who fit the bill for Ripple’s target audience, the company’s strategy to penetrate there makes sense.

As per Moran, Ripple is now increasingly realising how much enthusiasm Asian users have for high tech solutions to meet their financial needs. As the company has already gained great success in serving users across most of Europe and the Americas, it is now turning its attention towards the east.

“It’s very early days, but we see the biggest appetite in Asian markets, in terms of demand, so remittance demand, whether it is corridors that are under-served because correspondence banking is too costly… So, we feel that there is demand.”

Moran commented on how Asian countries do not always offer clear regulatory directives when it comes to crypto offerings and fintech solutions. However, he expressed hope, citing the cases of Thailand and Japan, and stating plans to expand there. Yet, Asia poses major regulatory challenges as one of the biggest markets, China, continues to take a hard-line stance towards crypto in terms of governmental policy. Having said that, Ripple seems well-equipped to take on that challenge. It has already made inroads into China by teaming up with LianLian and American Express for credit card processing services.

According to Dan Moran, besides Ripple’s xRapid and XRP which have found many takers in the continent, other offerings are also expected to gain in popularity as they boost availability of liquidation solutions which Asia seems to be hungry for.