Blockchain has an extremely bright future for being an instantaneous frictionless cross-border payment system. The first large player in this field was Ripple Labs and while they had been making huge strides like their partnership with Moneygram once the SEC cracked down on them in December of last year those strides went away. Moneygram ended its partnership with them and many exchanges delisted their crypto, XRP, due to the litigation against Ripple.

With Ripple bogged down due to the ongoing litigation this has really opened up this cross-border payment field and a new entrant is coming. The new blockchain-based cross-border payment and settlement platform is called Partior and might have a step up on Ripple even when it gets its litigation hashed out. Partior is a company that has been created by three different groups coming together. The biggest name is JP Morgan Chase and they have teamed up with Singapore's largest bank DBS Bank and a state-owned investment outfit called Temasek for the project. 

Having a partner who is already state-owned is going to be a huge huge benefit to this company. This will help the company build itself in a way that will be compliant with the rules and regulations anding in a huge financial institution like JP Morgan Chase creates a true powerhouse behind Partior. Singapore has been a leader in blockchain technology and has invested not only private money but also public funds into the adaptation of this technology. With Singapore being well-positioned as a huge finance center especially with the growing economies in Asia this partnership could rapidly pay off for all parties involved. 

At least right now this really hampers efforts by Ripple to expand in this area as partnering with the City-State is a huge win however with Ripple being aimed at more European markets and with the litigation shaping up well for them it might be resolved rather quickly. It could be that these two companies become the two big players in cross-border transactions especially at the financial level and corporate level. Individuals already have key blockchains like stellar lumens to send money through.

It will be interesting to see how this effort works out. It seems like not that long ago these major financial institutions were waving the white flag and walking away from crypto and blockchain technology but now they are running back as fast as they can.