San Francisco-based blockchain company Ripple has launched a lending offering, called Line of Credit, that allows its customers that utilize the On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution to borrow XRP in order to quickly get access to capital.
The new service — which has already been piloted by members of the RippleNet network — is currently in a beta testing stage.
As reported by U.Today, Ripple’s foray into lending came to light in mid-May after the blockchain decacorn started looking for a director of product management for its loan platform.
Back then, the company remained mum about the details of its new offering. Although, Ripple’s ex-head of XRP markets Miguel Vias did offer a glimpse of them on a podcast as early as in March 2017, calling lending “one of the levers” that the company would be able to pull.
The new product now allows RippleNet members to borrow XRP from Ripple by paying a one-time fee, avoiding long waiting times associated with legacy financial institutions.
Alex DovbnyaIn his Twitter statement, Asheesh Birla, the newly appointed general manager of RippleNet, claims that capital crunch is one of the biggest obstacles for the growth of small- and medium-sized startups.
Line of Credit allows you to scale & accelerate your business performance - pilot customers are already seeing the results. RippleNet is evolving: from bi-directional messaging, settlement, liquidity management to lending.
Branching out into lending puts Ripple one step closer to becoming “the Amazon of crypto,” the goal that has been repeatedly mentioned by the company’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse:
Amazon started as a bookseller and just sold books. We happen to have started with payments. Two years from now, you’re going to find that Ripple is to payments as Amazon was to books.
Ripple is, by far, the largest holder of XRP that controls the lion’s share of the token’s total supply.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov