Intermex, Ripple Partnership Dynamics Change

Popular remittance provider, especially for the US-Latin America corridor, Intermex, has revised its working terms for partnering with Ripple.

The cross-border payment firm, Intermex will not be using Ripple (XRP)’s technology for core projects. It made this announcement in the March edition of its earning calls.

This news comes as a complete surprise to users, especially supporters of Ripple. The element of surprise is also due to the fact that much value was placed on Ripple’s underlying technology, RippleNet when the two parties inked their partnership deal last month.

In the announcement, the Intermex chief executive, Robert Lisy, pointed out that they had no plans to use Ripple in any of the company’s major markets. However, to honor their partnership, it would be employed in new and emerging markets.

Lisy also added that they felt the technology was likely to have more impact in such areas. Notably, Intermex has been exploring going into ancillary products in new markets.

Ripple might be employed in Africa

On February 5, 2020, Ripple had announced a strategic partnership with Intermex. In its press release, it had stated that it would work to facilitate faster and cheaper cross-border remittance, especially in the ever-busy US and Mexico remittance corridor.

Lisy went on to emphasize in the latest announcement that Intermex currently had a strong network in its Mexico operations. And there were no thoughts to introduce Ripple, he stated.

In the emerging markets scene, Africa seems to have caught the eye of the cross-border payment processor. As it disclosed plans to expand its reach into Africa, Lisy felt it seemed a more feasible option for Ripple technologies to be employed there.

Intermex isn’t the only Ripple partner with not so favorable clauses in its agreement. MoneyGram, one of Ripple’s most popular clients, recently revealed that it immediately liquidated all XRP tokens obtained through the partnership.

This didn’t go down well with a lot of XRP holders as selling a huge amount of tokens leads to high selling pressure. In 2019, MoneyGram had sold $11.3 million worth of XRP, essentially triggering XRP monthly sell pressure by $1 million.

Remittance and the crypto space

The crypto space and remittance are becoming synonymous. This is particularly true in regions like Latin America where households rely on funds sent by relatives abroad.

The crypto space is thus positively revamping the remittance industry by facilitating faster and cheaper remittance services. Remittance companies like Intermex are employing crypto and its underlying technology blockchain to facilitate international transfers that are both fast and cheap.

Incidentally, 15% of all global remittance is estimated to involve crypto. This is especially true in developing regions of the world.

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