It's certainly a valid fear... in order to make this work, I have a sinking suspicion that Ripple will have to dish out a ton of XRP coins to allow for true decentralization and open up huge volumes of coins to allow governments to buy in. There's a big ? surrounding this, as Ripple currently holds the bulk of XRP. Technically making it "centralized", but just not owned by a bank.
Given that USA, S.America and Japan is already running internal testing with XRP to handle intra-bank transactions; and everything is going smoothly, and Ripple is willing to play ball, I think it is* possible. It's certainly cheap enough to justify vs. SWIFT or something as dumb as Bitcoin.
For the banks to create their own coin, it would require them to build an all new ecosystem and start from scratch... without billions of supporting liquidity already present.
It's certainly a valid fear... in order to make this work, I have a sinking suspicion that Ripple will have to dish out a ton of XRP coins to allow for true decentralization and open up huge volumes of coins to allow governments to buy in. There's a big ? surrounding this, as Ripple currently holds the bulk of XRP. Technically making it "centralized", but just not owned by a bank.
Given that USA, S.America and Japan is already running internal testing with XRP to handle intra-bank transactions; and everything is going smoothly, and Ripple is willing to play ball, I think it is* possible. It's certainly cheap enough to justify vs. SWIFT or something as dumb as Bitcoin.
For the banks to create their own coin, it would require them to build an all new ecosystem and start from scratch... without billions of supporting liquidity already present.