Fidor Bank in Germany became the first bank to integrate the real-time global settlement protocol provided by Ripple Labs. The direct bank will adopt Ripple’s open-source, distributed payment protocol that enables nearly free instant payments in any currency, including dollars, yen, euros, Bitcoin and loyalty points. Ripple Labs also has its own virtual currency, called ripple. Fidor offers a combination of traditional and online banking services to private and corporate clients. It has a history of supporting virtual currency and has worked with Payward and Bitcoin Deutschland, both of which operate virtual currency exchanges. Payward’s Kraken exchange also supports the ripple digital currency. The bank will use Ripple to power inter-bank payments with other institutions and intra-bank payments between branches, according to a bank release, at lower costs and settlement and foreign exchange risk.
