goLance CEO Michael Brooks Joins Panel with Ripple to Discuss Fintech Trends at IMTC World 2020

Freelance Marketplace Leverages Blockchain Solutions for Cross-Border Payments

Michael Brooks, CEO of goLance, an award-winning global freelance marketplace, offered his perspective on the relationship between banks and fintechs and how cryptocurrencies have evolved, in a panel discussion on digital disruption led by Ripple, a leading provider of enterprise blockchain solutions for payments. The session was recently held at IMTC World 2020, the largest money transfer conference.

The topic, Disruption on the Cash Flow – Digital, focused on how blockchain has gone from a hype word to real use cases in a few years. "The conference provided a great opportunity to discuss the changing landscape of cryptocurrency and share how using blockchain technology and the digital asset XRP through Ripple's On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product has made it easy and extremely cost-effective for goLance to very quickly and securely send and receive global payments in local currency on either side of a transaction," Brooks said. "The process takes seconds, which keeps our global freelancers in the Philippines and Mexico happy because they don't have to deal with delays and high fees that are associated with using traditional services for cross-border payments."

Highlights of Brooks' discussion included his perspective of the following global trends:

• The relationship between banks and fintechs: We're going to see the dilution of the corner bank. The relationship between banks and fintechs, however, is going to get stronger as banks create more of a digital banking culture.

• How banks and fintechs are innovating: We've started working with banks and helped them to bring in their own development teams and build out their own tech stacks, integrate with other companies, and provide streamlined services to meet business demands.

• The speed of moving money: This activity needs to be hyper-efficient, like it is with Ripple's ODL product. Ripple is constantly optimizing the process, making processing international payments efficient and low cost.

About goLance
goLance provides innovative software that empowers businesses to recruit, screen, manage, optimize, and pay global online freelance talent efficiently and cost effectively. It also enables freelancers to pay and manage subcontractors when they need additional talent for assignments. The goLance platform has more than 570,000 users.