CGI (NYSE: GIB) (TSX: GIB.A) today announced it is the first commercial enterprise to implement the Ripple Validator Node. Ripple validators are servers that confirm Ripple’s distributed financial technology transactions on the network. The CGI-hosted Ripple Validator Node provides banking clients with a trusted network partner for Ripple’s distributed financial technology that settles international and domestic transactions in real-time.

CGI is taking public ledger technology out of the innovation lab and bringing its practical benefits to clients. This announcement follows the recent release of CGI’s Ripple-enabled Intelligent Gateway. The Intelligent Gateway is one of the first payments solutions in the industry to integrate Ripple’s distributed financial technology and provides a solution-agnostic, transformational wrapper around a client’s payment processing systems.

"Given our ongoing efforts to further decentralize the Ripple network, we couldn’t be more excited for CGI to implement a validator," said Asheesh Birla, VP of Product at Ripple, “Having a major enterprise player contribute to the consensus process on Ripple fortifies the resiliency of the network, and it plays a key role in our work with CGI to make it even easier to put blockchain technology into commercial production.”

“CGI is at the forefront of payments modernization, and our partnership with Ripple provides added value to our clients,” said Pamela Smith, Vice-President of CGI’s Financial Solutions Group. “We are excited to continue to expand our use of distributed financial technology to help banks reduce implementation risks and shorten time to value.”