Distributed ledger startup Ripple has endorsed three cryptocurrency exchanges as its "preferred partners" for transacting with its xRapid payments service, which uses the cryptocurrency XRP.

Announced Thursday, Bittrex, Bitso and Coins.ph will now serve as Ripple's "preferred digital asset exchanges" as part of its efforts to build out the XRP ecosystem.

Cory Johnson, Ripple's chief markets strategist, told CoinDesk that the firm is essentially encouraging all of its clients in the U.S., Mexico and the Philippines to use those three exchanges, respectively, for sending funds using its xRapid service.

"So in the U.S. we're saying the gold standard, our official partner is Bittrex. So any bank can go to Bittrex and have guaranteed liquidity on the spot, trade their dollars for XRP, zip over to Mexico to Bitso, our preferred partner there, and convert [to Mexican pesos]," he said in an interview.

The financial institutions would need to have accounts with the exchanges to convert U.S. dollars, or Mexican or Philippine pesos, according to Johnson.

The three exchanges were chosen due to their XRP holdings, allowing them to provide higher levels of liquidity, he said, adding that "there's a whole bunch of companies around the world that are using XRP and what we're doing is identifying three other [exchanges] that have a lot of XRP liquidity and steering more liquidity their way."

While Ripple has only announced three exchanges so far, Johnson said more names are to follow.

He explained:

Ripple needs to determine where these places are, he said. As an example, he noted that Taiwan and the Philippines see large volumes of trading compared to other international corridors, meaning Ripple could focus more attention on that corridor.

Ripple image via Shutterstock