Ripple Meets UK Treasury Official — Is a New XRP Deal on the Horizon

Ripple president Monica Long meets U.K. Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Lucy Rigby, to discuss modernizing financial services with blockchain.
The UK is seeking to maintain its position as a crypto hub and “rub shoulders” with the likes of the US and Asia.

Ripple is back in the news as reports suggest that President Monica Long met a UK official to discuss digital assets and financial innovation. According to the report, Long hosted U.K. Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby at the company’s office in Singapore.

Experts believe that both parties have a keen interest in advancing their role in the blockchain ecosystem. While Ripple seeks to push its blockchain solutions for global payments, the UK also seeks to position itself as one of the leading countries that prioritize financial technology (FinTech) and digital innovation.

More About the Ripple and UK Meeting

According to reports, the discussion focused on the ability of blockchain to modernize financial services, which include faster and cheaper cross-border transactions. The blockchain company has also positioned itself as a compliant partner for governments after successfully attaining clarity in its legal status.

The UK is reported to have announced its intention to collaborate with the US to come up with crypto regulations. As said by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, this international cooperation would make the UK maintain a competitive edge.

On the need to maintain close collaboration, Ripple executive Cassie Craddock has noted that the U.S and the U.K. could potentially use FinTech to boost Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Reports have also confirmed that blockchain adoption has the tendency to reduce global payment costs by up to 40%.

Already, the UK has taken initiatives to build its crypto hub through policies including tokenized asset pilots, clearer stablecoin regulations, and incentives for digital asset innovation.

In a draft previously examined by CNF, it was discovered that the UK’s proposed legislation is meant to promote innovation. The recent meeting with Ripple also signals that a new deal could be in the pipeline.

Last year, Ripple partnered with Clear Junction to ensure that GBP and EUR-denominated payout coverage is facilitated instantly across the UK and EU for Ripple payment customers. At that time, Craddock lauded the collaboration.

Clear Junction is a great fit for Ripple. From the word go, it was able to support all of our use cases, including providing GBP and EUR payout coverage for our clients sending payments into the UK and the European Union. Clear Junction already has strong relationships with a number of our existing clients, and its management team has many years of experience in cross-border payments and banking.

The UK’s recent move also follows a comment by former UK Chancellor George Osborne, which suggested that the country’s approach towards crypto could make it miss out on its related opportunities and fall behind the US, the EU, and Asia, as noted in our previous publication.

Recently, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also slammed UK TV for banning crypto-related ads.

Our ad, which got banned in the UK by the TV networks, has sparked quite a reaction. If you can’t say it, then there must be a kernel of truth in it.

Regardless of these, the UK is said to be reopening safer access by reconsidering the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) 2020 ban on retail access to crypto exchange-traded notes (cETNs), as discussed earlier. Kraken and MasterCard have also unveiled debit cards for UK and EU users to push crypto adoption, according to our recent update.