Ripple's Sendi Young on the state of crypto and payments

At Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, FinTech Magazine spoke with Sendi Young, European & UK Managing Director at Ripple, about consumer appetite for cryptocurrencies and the trends she’s seeing within the industry.

Ripple is using crypto and blockchain to address existing challenges within the cross-border payments space – but is doing so at a difficult moment in the industry’s history. The past 12 months have been defined by price volatility, as well as the infamous collapse of crypto exchange FTX last autumn. For Ripple, demonstrating the real-world applications of crypto and blockchain are vitally important parts of their strategy.

As with many of this year’s exhibitors and attendees, Money20/20 Europe is an important event for Ripple. “It’s a really fantastic opportunity to catch up with all our partners and customers,” she says, adding that the company uses the three-day event to talk to prospective clients about how Ripple can support them with crypto-enabled cross-border payments.

But Young has noticed a shift in recent years, where crypto topics have moved from a niche position to a fully mainstream one: “Compared to even two or three years ago, I have seen crypto-blockchain topics seeping in through the agenda and taking over in a way where, almost all the conversations, there is always a question about us.

“I see that trend has been adopted and now it’s a natural part of the financial services and payments industry, and I can see that trend persisting. Those who are building for the future are continuing to talk about [crypto and blockchain] and continuing to talk about the real-world use cases. I’m excited and encouraged to see that, in spite of some of the challenging developments happening in the space.”

For more from Young at Money20/20, you can see the video above, or if you would like to watch more content about Crypto please click here.