Earthport CEO Hank Uberoi:

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[Ripple] solves a problem that exists today, not necessarily 10 years out. It could gain acceptance today because theyre dealing with many currencies, not just with cryptocurrencies, and thats important to us because we dont want to create solutions for which there is no demand today, though there may be some in the future.

Everyone passionate about cryptocurrency should be excited.

Emphasis of this news is on Ripple, but this means much more. It is easy to miss the broader relevance, especially for those who stop reading when they see Ripple in the news.

Non-cryptocurrency actors are beginning to embrace cryptoccurency to replace core banking infrastructure.

Uberoi continues:

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People will start to realize that using this combined infrastructure, they can start addressing many needs and problems that exist in the current cross-border paradigm.

Earthport is directly engaged with major players:

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Earthport specializes in cross-border payments, maintaining one of the largest open networks of its kind. The companys payments hub features local clearing institutions and payments companies from 60 countries around the world. Additionally, Earthport works with major banking partners like Bank of America, Barclays and BBVA.

[quote from the article body - bolded emphasis added]

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Earthport serves banks, money transfer businesses, e-commerce companies and payments aggregators. Its clients include two of the top four global banks and four of the top 20 U.S. banks; Bank of America, HSBC, Western Union, Xoom and American Express use Earthport services.

[from another article - bolded emphasis added]

Earthport also recently won [11/21/2014] a payments innovation award, prior to this announcement.

Beyond Ripple:

Align Commerce is an interesting startup that puts major public emphasis on Bitcoin and blockchain technologies for international transfer. Remitano may also have something similar in the works. I have no idea how long the full list of planned and announced businesses may be.

And this is certainly a lift for the future of all cryptocurrency protocols designed for multi-currency usage.

Beyond today:

Any bridge between core banking infrastructure and the broader cryptocurrency community is a pathway to achieving the vision of ubiquitous cryptocurrency adoption. If cryptocurrency is to replace fiat, it will be a multi-phase transition.

It may already be happening. Wink

Ripple is making inroads, and helping forge a path.