LONDON (Alliance News) - Earthport PLC, a payments network for cross-border transactions, on Tuesday said its new Distributed Ledger Hub service will aim to help banks as they juggle the need to work with lower budgets while keeping up with big technological developments.
The service will give Earthport's clients access to distributed ledger technology at "minimal" effort and cost, through a single application programming interface, the company said.
The hub is accessed through Earthport's Distributed Ledger Gateway, which transports funds through partner Ripple's protocol to "record the transaction and leverage its prefunded accounts to provide instant liquidity and the best FX rate. The beneficiary then receives the amount in near real-time".
The company partnered with Ripple Labs on a cross-border payments partnership back in December 2014, bringing together the Ripple protocol with Earthport's own network.
Earthport said the latest move is designed to allow banks to move into a "new world of payments" without additional heavy investment in infrastructure, compliance or operational requirements.
In addition to Ripple, through the same application programming interface, clients can access all of the methods of payment offered by Earthport.
Earthport's services in the Distributed Ledger Hub are conducted entirely in Fiat currency with no use of crypto currencies.
"It is our belief that there may be different ledgers that gain traction over time - some will have a regional affiliation, and some may be more aligned by industry sector," Chief Executive Hank Uberoi said in a statement.
"Banks will need to have access to a growing universe of different ledgers to serve their own clients, further complicating their technical roadmaps. Earthport, in consultation with its clients, will grow the Hub to encompass different ledgers as needed, all available via a single Earthport API."
Shares in Earthport were up 1.6% at 32.37pence on Tuesday morning.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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