Impel and the XDC Network (XinFin) today announced the official launch of Impel, an alternative solutions platform for quickly and securely sending ISO 20022-compliant financial messages. It includes the option to add $XDC as collateral for instant settlement and a bridge to the R3 Corda platform for future-facing banks and fintechs.

Impel was created as a cost-effective alternative to legacy financial messaging solutions, like SWIFT and SEPA, providing an interoperable standard for financial data exchange while also streamlining settlement and reconciliation.

“Our technology is easy for financial institutions to implement and will increase their ability to offer an improved customer service experience through more efficient and lower cost transactions,” said Troy S. Wood, CEO and Founder of Impel. “We’re already engaging with some of the largest global banks and payment companies, as well as smaller financial institutions in emerging markets as part of our pilot program. We expect that Impel’s financial messaging platform and the R3 Corda Bridge could become ubiquitous globally within two years or less.”

Impel’s service offerings run on the XDC Network, which was created and is maintained by XinFin Fintech, a CoinMarketCap top 100 enterprise-ready hybrid blockchain project for global trade and finance. Leveraging outstanding security, Impel’s financial messaging platform uses an API that meets the new ISO 20022 standard and is quickly becoming the global language for financial messaging. Impel also offers a real-time settlement option by using $XDC (or XRC-20 tokens), XDC Network’s native coin, as collateral in the financial message’s payload instead of the current two-plus day standard commonly used across the financial services industry through the central banking system and settlement through nostro/vostro accounts.

Security is most important at Impel, and transactions are routed through a highly secure API, utilizing a Layer 2 solution that prevents data exposure to unauthorized parties and developed by a team with decades of information technology experience in providing secure technology infrastructure for banks and fintechs. Plus, each validating node on the XDC Network is KYC-compliant and features built-in forensic monitoring to quickly target and eliminate bad actors.

Financial institutions can also use Impel to strategically transform their businesses and unlock value-added opportunities enabled by the new ISO 20022 standard, as well as administrative monitoring tools for reporting and management.

Impel will not charge implementation, annual membership, nor per-usage fees for the financial messaging service. The only cost for banks and FIs is the XDC Network’s near-zero gas fee to send messages/payments, which is only a fraction of a cent ($0.00001 or less) per transaction. The financial transactions can be rolled up into just one message, meaning that multiple messages can be sent in one transaction allowing for customization that meets the demands and desires of the involved parties.

Impel offers a self-paced ISO 20022 financial message demo that allows anyone to create and send transaction requests over the XDC Network’s mainnet. The demo is available on their website, https://impel.global.

Through the R3 Corda | XDC Network Bridge, $XDC value can move freely between the Corda public network and the XDC Network’s public blockchain. This unique bridging technology allows data to be recorded privately on the Corda platform, while limited data sets are transferred to the XDC public network – mitigating institutional risk and turning Corda into a hybrid network. It can also be used as a settlement vehicle inside of the Corda ecosystem.

“Impel is bringing to market much-needed solutions, creating service offerings that not only improve traditional banking institution operations but also help grow and push emerging financial businesses to the next level,” said Richard Crook, Chief Operating Officer at BCB Group, who recently acquired Impel’s development partner, LAB577, where Richard remains as the CEO. “We view ISO 20022 as a strong, single standardization approach for aligning all financial initiatives along the same standard later this year. But it will require banks and FIs to rethink how payments integrate into wider business, infrastructure and growth strategies. $XDC is just the first currency across the XDC Network and lays the groundwork for connecting Corda to other digital asset networks like Ethereum, improving overall interoperability for fintech communities.”