Ripple rival Roxe launches DeFi liquidity pools for wholesale FX rates

Roxe has launched a set of DeFi liquidity pools to enable cross-border payments at wholesale FX rates.

The Roxe Payment Protocol (RPP) USD/EUR, USD/GBP and USD/PHP (Philippine peso) liquidity pools combines the real-time Bid and Ask FX rates from financial institutions.

The B2B FX rates free up any capital held by current partners in nostro vostro accounts, eliminating pain points and the reserve requirements currently in place to send cross-border payments to the European Union, the United Kingdom and the Philippines.

The blockchain infrastructure company introduced the service to allow its partners to send cross-border payments at wholesale FX rates, setting a single target FX rate each minute for its partners to utilize.

Josh Li, Chief Business Officer of Roxe, said: “We are thrilled to launch the world’s first set of DeFi liquidity pools that provides FX at a wholesale rate, bridging the world of DeFi and TradFi through remittances. The Philippines’ remittance market alone is one of the largest in the world, so this is a huge step forward for cross-border payments and a key moment in the evolution of Roxe’s platform. Based on our internal benchmarking analysis, RPP’s mid-market FX rates for these three currency pairs are up to 1% better compared with other leading commercial FX services.”

Roxe has recently ramped up product and partner expansion, having partnered with GME (Global Money Express), who have integrated Roxe’s technology and Roxe Instant Settlement Network (RISN) to generate greater value for their end customers.

Roxe and Ripple rivalry

Roxe is a finalist for the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) G20 TechSprint challenge on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and has added over 40 partners to its global payment community, including ECS Fin, Axletree Solutions, N2Xpress, Global Money Express, Fairexpay, Rana Express, iPay, and Treviso.

The BIS G20 TechSprint has shortlisted three teams to solve different problems. Ripple and Roxe were chosen to “build effective and robust means to issue, distribute and transfer CBDCs”.

Other Ripple rivals in the shortlist include BitMint, Dragonly Fintech, FIS, Mastercard Asia Pacific, R3, and S.e.A, which is a joint project between eCurrency, ANZ, and ex-Ripple CTO Jed McCaleb’s Stellar.