Bank of America, Santander, and the Royal Bank of Canada partner to create a global blockchain payments network using Ripple's distributed ledger technology
Michael del Castillo / CoinDesk :
Context & Ripple Effects
A year after nine banks including Goldman Sachs and Barclays signed on to the R3 framework for using blockchain tech in the markets, the model is splitting: instead of one neutral consortium, individual banks are now picking a single vendor's ledger and building around it. Bank of America, Santander, and the Royal Bank of Canada choosing Ripple's distributed ledger puts a startup's stack at the center of three global balance sheets.
The bet pays off visibly in the follow-on coverage: Santander deepens the relationship with an American Express partnership easing US-UK transfers, then becomes the first international bank to run live cross-border blockchain payments across Spain, the UK, Brazil, and Poland.
First-order effects
- The three banks gain a shared distributed-ledger rail for cross-border payments, and Ripple converts a startup pitch into production infrastructure inside three of the world's largest banking groups.
Second-order effects
- Rivals are forced to answer with their own rails: JPMorgan Chase launches its own blockchain payment network with ANZ and RBC as partners, and by late 2018 more than 75 banks join the JPMorgan-RBC-ANZ alliance testing faster member-to-member payments.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, interbank settlement consolidates into a handful of competing vendor-backed networks rather than the single shared framework R3 envisioned — with each bank's network choice becoming a long-term strategic lock-in.
- Santander's path from pilot partner to first mover on live cross-border payments suggests early consortium members who commit to one vendor capture the 'first international bank' positioning that later entrants cannot claim.
The trend: Bank payments infrastructure is fragmenting from neutral industry consortia like R3 into competing vendor-specific settlement networks, with Ripple and JPMorgan's stack as the leading poles.