Ripple and American Express recently were members of the Money 20/20 discussion forum. The discussion forum highlighted the fact as to why transparent and faster payment methods are necessary for the small and medium business enterprises.
Challenges faced by SMEs for Cross-Border Payments:
On the final day of the event, there was a discussion on what are the challenges which are faced by the small and medium enterprises in order to initiate cross-border payments.
According to experts, small and medium business enterprises form the vital part of the economy. In some of the countries, they are even a dominant part of the economy. This is the reason why any bottlenecks or obstacles which are faced by them can alter the growth of the economy. The problem is that most of the small and medium enterprises actually face the inefficient system due to which, they are not able to expand their business globally. Moreover, the global e-commerce is growing at a swift pace, the small and medium business enterprises are not able to take advantage of that. This is due to the inefficiencies of the payment system. The small and medium business enterprises are not able to take decisions at a swift pace. This is another problem which they are facing. According to VP of American Express, Colin O’Flaherty, the small and medium enterprises think that the cross-border payments are a cumbersome task. According to him, at least 71% of the enterprises feel so.
The senior vice president of customer success of Ripple, Marcus Treacher, was also a speaker at the event and stated that with the help of Ripple, many of the problems which the enterprises faced in the past are gone now. With the help of xCurrent which is offered by Ripple, cross-border payments can be done more easily. As a result, enterprises will be able to initiate the payments and conclude the payments quickly. This will help them in expanding globally at a rapid pace.
He was quick to add however that they are just in the initial stages of easing up the payment bottleneck internationally. That is why there is a lot more to learn. However, with the help of blockchain technology more and more solutions will develop to solve the problems of the customers. As a result, the problem of international payments will be easily solved and the small and medium business enterprises will be able to initiate such transactions easily. It remains to be seen whether indeed ripple protocol is able to help the SME businesses or not.
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