Fintech giant Ripple has hired former Mastercard executive Sendi Young as Managing Director of its European operations in a bid to expand Ripple’s global financial network technology RippleNet, which uses the XRP token for its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution.

In a blog post, Ripple detailed that Sendi has over fifteen years of experience in fintech, payments, and consulting and is joining Ripple after a five-year tenure at Mastercard where “she held leadership roles driving strategy, commercialization, bank-fintech partnerships and business development.”

Young noted that over the last decade she was at the forefront of innovation in financial services and “witnessed how technology has dramatically changed how we bank and pay,” and added:

However, the underlying payments and banking infrastructure remains an obstacle to frictionless value exchange across borders and inclusion. I firmly believe that blockchain and crypto will be a game-changer to enhance today’s finance, by addressing its core inefficiencies

Ripple added in its blog post that RippleNet has been growing exponentially in Europe, which is called a “critical market for Ripple.” A quarter of the firm’s customers are reportedly based in Europe and year-to-date European ODL transactions “grew by 250% in comparison to 2020, making up over 40% of all ODL transactions year to date.”

According to the firm’s website, RippleNet offers “connections to hundreds of financial institutions around the world via a single API” to make moving money ”faster, cheaper and more reliable.” The ODL solution leverages the XRP token to “source liquidity during cross-border transactions, as an alternative to traditional systems.”

The value of XRP has notably been affected by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) lawsuit against Ripple and two of its executives, alleging they “raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.” 

According to at least one analyst, Ripple settling its lawsuit with the SEC could lead to an XRP supply shock, which would presumably lead to a price surge as demand would remain the same, while supply plunged.

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