Ripple ODL Partner Mercury Secures Entry to South Africa’s IFWG Regulatory Sandbox

South Africa is set to get a major overhaul in its cross-border payments facility. Mercury, Ripple’s partner for on-demand liquidity has secured a place in the “first cohort of South Africa’s Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group (IFWG) Regulatory Sandbox”.

This is a big step in bringing the FinTech revolution to the African continent. The IFWG platform looks after all the FinTech innovations taking place in South Africa. For its inaugural regulator sandbox, nearly 50 companies had applied for it. However, Mercury is one of the six companies that appeared in the final list.

Being a Ripple partner, Mercury will leverage RippleNets’ on-demand liquidity (ODL) service along with its native digital asset XRP to facilitate efficient and instant cross-border payments. The official announcement from Ripple notes:

“The company’s IFWG announcement today made clear its belief in the future of blockchain-based money transfer, and its goals for dramatically cutting the time and cost of sending money into and out of South Africa using RippleNet and ODL.

Ripple is honored to be part of this transformation of remittances and international payments within Africa in partnership with innovative partners like Mercury. We are committed to supporting similarly important efforts around the world and working closely with regulators to ensure their success”.

Ripple Expanding its Footprint in Global Market

The San Francisco-based blockchain startup has been in news especially for the current lawsuit slapped by the U.S. SEC on the alleged sales of XRP as illegal securities. However, this hasn’t deterred Ripple from expanding its footprint in the global markets.

Ripple knows that there’s a huge potential to improve the digital payments network in the Asian and South African markets, and it’s doing exactly that.

Today’s announcement comes just a day after Ripple announced a 40% stake acquisition in Malaysia-based Asian FinTech Tranglo. This partnership also involves using Ripple’s on-demand liquidity solutions facilitating instant cross-border payments.