During a Dubai Conference, Dilip Rao revealed that Ripple will now be expanding itself into the Middle East, with Dubai being their first target market. He mostly spoke of the office that will be set up along with how Ripple will be complying by regulations set in Dubai.

As for Dubai-based office, it has been disclosed that it should come into effect by year-end 2018 and that the firm’s primary goals are to initiate “cross border payments,” adding that “there is a huge requirement for cross-border transactions that will support the economy both within the region, but also in terms of business.”

He also shared that Ripple has since partnered with nearly 200 institutions, most of which are from the Middle East as he calls it the region one of the “fastest growing marketplace.”

XRP is the Solution to the Liquidity Problem?

During the same conference, Rao referenced the fact that many are opposing the firm due to working alongside financial institutions, mainly because of the latter’s centralized nature. He, however, does not see it that way, but instead sees it as a collaboration that will get everyone one step closer to the final solution.

He later spoke of Ripple’s goals towards the InterLedger Protocol, where he described the endeavor as bringing together, “a bunch of people who have an interest in making the movement of value frictionless,” who will then work towards building, “a new protocol to enable ledgers to connect with each other.”

Rao also made the case for why Ripple does not use public ledgers. Evidently, it is due to the fact that they are working with financial institutions, whom naturally require a strong sense of “secrecy and privacy” as he put it. Additionally, he deems the Ripple token [XRP] has the potential to “solve for the lack of liquidity in many corridors as a bridging asset to convert from one to the other.”