Ripple’s Managing Director for UK and Europe on Crypto Regulation

During a recent interview with UK-based news outlet Financial News, Sendi Young, Managing Director for UK and Europe at FinTech firm Ripple, shared her thoughts on the regulation of the crypto space.

On 30 June 2021, Ripple announced Young’s appointment. Ripple’s press release stated that Sendi will “oversee strategy and champion the expansion of Ripple’s global financial network technology, RippleNet, which delivers financial solutions that enable customers to easily run and scale their business.”

This is what it said about Young’s background:

“With over fifteen years of experience in fintech, payments and consulting, Sendi joins Ripple following a five-year tenure at Mastercard, where she held leadership roles driving strategy, commercialisation, bank-fintech partnerships, and business development.

“Most recently, Sendi led the Fintech & Digital Segment globally for Mastercard’s Data & Services business and grew services that helped banks adopt real-time payments, Open Banking and Artificial Intelligence. Sendi brings with her deep industry and regional expertise which will be used to develop and further drive customer success across Europe.“

She had this to say back then:

“Over the last decade, I’ve been at the forefront of innovation in financial services and witnessed how technology has dramatically changed how we bank and pay. However, the underlying payments and banking infrastructure remain an obstacle to frictionless value exchange across borders and inclusion. I firmly believe that blockchain and crypto will be a game-changer to enhance today’s finance, by addressing its core inefficiencies.

“These technologies can make the global financial system fairer, more inclusive and more transparent – this is just the beginning of what’s possible and I’m excited to be joining such a talented and passionate team and a company that is at the forefront of this step-change.“

During her recent interview with Financial News, Young said:

“What really matters is having a clear regulatory framework on this so that all the players know the rules of the road and can innovate accordingly. Uncertainty is the biggest threat to innovation. We are not against regulation. Regulation will help crypto unlock utility. 

“I have the opportunity to see what’s happening in the UK and Europe compared to the US and Asia. I can kind of see the differences. We have outright bans like in China, we have regulation by enforcement in the US, and we have something in between in places like the UK, Europe, Japan, Singapore, UAE, where it is more about creating that framework so that the players can innovate. That third one is certainly the approach that we favour. 

“The Markets in Crypto Assets bill, which is the new legislation that the European Union just passed and is looking to take effect in the next few years, is very important. It is a pivotal moment and it is the first harmonised regulatory framework for such a big region that we have seen. We applaud that effort. That will really help innovation and help Europe take a step forward to being a crypto hub globally.“

Young was interviewed by CNBC Europe anchor Karen Tso at this year’s Money20/20 Europe conference (held 7-9 June 2022 in Amsterdam).

Here is what she said about the state of the crypto market and how Ripple is doing:

“At Ripple, we are really focused on the long term utility, not the volatility. Since the early days, we’re really focused on solving real-world problems with crypto and blockchain technologies, particularly around cross-border payments, addressing things like transparency, cost, speed, reliability, and we’ve built a very strong cross-border network based out of that. So, I think we remain to be really bullish on that crypto-enabled future for financial services…

“The last 18 months have been the strongest period for us. We’ve doubled our payments network, we have hundreds of customers with a payment flow run rate of over $15 billion today. We continue to see strong demand because we are solving real-world problems, real pain points with these technologies.“

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Featured Image via Pixabay

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