Ex-Ripple execs announce pingNpay: blockchain-powered payments for Web 3.0.

Richard Bell, a former Ripple, Visa and Santander executive, and Jeremy Light, who worked at Ripple and led Accenture’s payment consulting business in Europe, have announced a new payments project, pingNpay.

pingNpay, to be launched initially in the UK next year, will create a new category of high frequency, low-value payments (below $20 per transaction).

The project aims to unlock new digital retail services which will be at the center of the next development of the internet, Web 3.0.

The network plans to use stablecoins in each country of operation, denominated and anchored in the local currency, 100% backed by liquid fiat assets with a published proof-of-reserve to meet regulatory expectations.

Richard Bell, co-founder at pingNpay, commented: “The unveiling of pingNpay comes at an important time for the subscription and digital services economy, which has grown substantially during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“In a world where micropayments are becoming commonplace, retailers are still finding monetizing digital grazing a challenge, and many potential services they could offer have yet to see the light of day. No one has yet to crack the sub-$20 digital payment market. The major card networks can process tens of thousands of payments per second, but even so, the cheapest debit card payments cost retailers at least 20p per payment, which represents 20% of a £1 payment.

“pingNpay solves this problem and will unleash a new wave of ecommerce innovation for consumers and the next stage of the internet’s evolution, Web 3.0.”

The firm will launch in 2022 and initially will target the United Kingdom using a digital coin “backed by the pound”, with total fees on transactions not exceeding 1 percent, the announcement stated.

“Consumers and merchants will not need to know they are paying or receiving stablecoins since they simply will see payments and balances in their local currency”, the firm added.

According to ex-Ripple exec and pingNpay co-founder Jeremy Light’s Linkedin profile: “pingNpay is open to all and unlike most other payment systems is permissionless to access, permissionless to innovate on and available to everyone, everywhere…pingNpay brings the power of blockchain using regulatory-compliant stablecoins to eCommerce, enabling very low-cost transactions leading to viable low-value payments for retailers to exploit through offering frequent, low-cost services to their customers.”

Jeremy Light was Vice President of Strategic Accounts at Ripple from 2018 to 2020, having joined the blockchain firm from Accenture, where he was a Managing Director for payments.

Richard Bell was Senior Director at Ripple from 2018 to 2021 after heading blockchain innovation at Banco Santander from 2014 and 2018. Santander was one of Ripple’s first top clients using the XRP ledger for cross-border payments.