Mercado Bitcoin, a leading Latin American exchange recently partnered with Mastercard, has announced it will work with Ripple to improve cross-border crypto payments.
Ripple, a way to send and exchange payments using blockchain, will soon launch cross-border payments using cryptocurrencies by partnering with Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin. This is meant to allow Brazilian firms to partner with Ripple and use a “managed end-to-end payments solution,” as Ripple stated in a press release on October 3.
Mastercard and Ripple Partnerships
The new payment system will support businesses in Brazil in making cross-border payments faster, cheaper, more effectively, and efficiently at any time. As mentioned by Ripple, it will settle in minutes.
It was established in 2013 and quickly became a major player in the cryptocurrency market. With 4 million clients, it is among the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in Latin America.
The exchange has a history of signing deals with other payment firms, such as Mastercard. In mid-2024, Mercado Bitcoin worked with Mastercard to provide real-time transactional capabilities in LAC and European payment paths.
Earlier this year, in April 2023, to be precise, the exchange also unveiled a partnership with Mastercard in a crypto identity system centered on Web3.
When asked about the exciting new partnership with Ripple, Jordan Abud from Mercado Bitcoin mentioned that the partnership will solely focus on using Ripple’s knowledge about blockchain payments to simplify transfers.
How Ripple and Mercado Bitcoin Are Transforming Global Payment Solutions
It is also a milestone for Mercado Bitcoin to expand its services internationally, as pointed out by Jordan Abud, the head of exchange banking. He noted that it is a great advantage because the company can offer such operations at lower costs while extending the product portfolio currently available.
This week’s announcement is not the first time Ripple has tried to expand its business in Latin America. In 2023, the latex firm joined other companies by signing a memorandum of understanding with Colombia’s central bank to study CBDC technology.
Ripple has been active in the South American region since 2019 when it opened an office in Brazil.
The business cooperation between Mercado Bitcoin and Ripple marks an important step in continuously strengthening crypto-based cross-border payments.
Using Ripple’s distributed ledger system, Mercado Bitcoin aims to facilitate cross-border transfers for Brazilian companies, enabling them to make payments faster, efficiently, and cheaply.
Since Mercado Bitcoin has been planning on broadening its service provision worldwide, this partnership reflects the organization’s vision and mission to transform and create personalized service delivery to all consumers, making Mercado Bitcoin a prominent player in the global fintech market. Ripple’s continuous operations in Latin America strengthen its position in using blockchain in cross-border transactions.
