XRP Surges After Ripple Signs Deal with Large Egyptian Bank

XRP, the token associated with the U.S.-based fintech firm Ripple, today soared to its highest level in U.S. dollar terms since July 2019 after the company announced yet another partnership, this time with the National Bank of Egypt, known as the largest state-owned bank in the country.

As of pixel time on Thursday (10:58 UTC), the XRP token was trading at USD 0.31, up almost 7% over the past 24 hours. Earlier today, however, XRP traded as high as USD 0.34, before falling back down. The gains in XRP compares to bitcoin’s 1% loss over the same time period.

XRP price chart:

According to a translated version of an article in local newspaper Youm7, Ripple signed the deal, referred to as a cooperation agreement, with several high-ranking executives at the National Bank of Egypt, reportedly making the bank the first in Egypt to utilize blockchain technology. Among those present at the signing ceremony was also Mark Johnson, vice president of sales at Ripple, in addition to other members of Ripple’s regional sales team.

Other than the local news report, which did not say when the signing took place, no official announcement has yet been made by Ripple about the new partnership. However, an unnamed Ripple representative confirmed the partnership to Decrypt.

The article in Youm7 also did not specify whether the bank would make use of Ripple’s XRP tokens for remittances, only saying that the overall network known as RippleNet would be used. As previously reported, only about 7% of Ripple’s existing partners use XRP to facilitate remittances.

According to data from the World Bank, Egypt is one of the largest recipients of remittances in the world, with overseas Egyptians sending back an estimated USD 29 billion in 2018. Taking a chunk of the massive global remittances market has been a key focus for Ripple since the beginning, with the firm announcing partnerships with several large remittance companies over the past few years.

Earlier in February, XRP also received the attention of hopeful crypto investors when the token outperformed the broader crypto market. Since then, however, XRP has lagged slightly behind bitcoin as the overall market has soared higher.