Ripple Treasury won’t force crypto on sceptical clients, exec says

Three months after it spent $1 billion to acquire GTreasury, Ripple has released a revamped corporate treasury management service dubbed Ripple Treasury — and the crypto is optional, an executive said on Wednesday.

“We wanted to make sure we were going to a partner and a final home that would not drive and force adoption of anything our clients didn’t want to do,” GTreasury CEO Renaat Ver Eecke said on a Wednesday webinar.

“The digital asset space is just going to be another option.”

At a Ripple conference in November, Ver Eecke said he was eager to educate clients on the benefits of using stablecoins in treasury management. His comments this week suggest some remain sceptical.

GTreasury has over four decades of experience in treasury services for Fortune 500 companies. US clients led by veteran executives may be wary of adopting technology that received explicit regulatory approval less than a year ago.

When Ripple acquired GTreasury in October, CEO Brad Garlinghouse said blockchain technology could solve the problems with legacy money management systems.

“For too long, money has been stuck in slow, outdated payments systems and infrastructure, causing unnecessary delays, high costs, and roadblocks to entering new markets,” he said in a statement at the time.

Ver Eecke repeatedly stressed on Wednesday that any blockchain-based features would remain optional, even as he argued they could revolutionize corporate money management.

“This is a historical GTreasury platform, and what you can see is we’re adding the capabilities of Ripple and some of its assets,” he said. “It’s the best combination of getting more from what you expect and being on the forefront.”

He also said the company would offer “tech credits” for crypto-curious clients.

“If you’re thinking about exploring [digital assets] but have a challenge about ‘how [do] I fund it,’” he said, “please reach out to us.”

For those who do adopt the technology, the benefits could be transformative, the executive said.

Settlement times in traditional finance mean that moving money around is a multi-day process. Crypto’s near-instant settlement times would allow executives to make better use of money that would otherwise be stuck in transit.

“There’s opportunities for us to empower all of our client base and our partners to basically go get yield and make that non-active cash start to work for you,” Ver Eecke said.

“We don’t expect anyone to take all of their payments and move into this. But every single corporate treasurer or CFO I’ve talked to has said I can think of a use case where I’d really like this.”

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.