Ripple Expands Stablecoin Payments Push to Challenge Legacy Banking Rails

Ripple Labs has upgraded its Ripple Payments platform into an end-to-end stablecoin settlement suite, and will now span management, custody, conversion, and payout across more than 60 markets, according to a press release.

This puts Ripple in direct competition with correspondent banking networks on settlement speed and capital efficiency.

The appealing part is that, by routing payments through RLUSD on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), banks and financial institutions/platforms can bypass the pre-funded overseas accounts that correspondent banking requires.

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Two acquisitions are pillars of this new upgrade, starting with Palisade, which Ripple acquired for its custody infrastructure, wallet services, and treasury automation, then agreed in Aug. 2025 to purchase Rail, a Toronto-based platform enabling businesses to hold, exchange, and settle using both fiat and stablecoins, for US$200 million (AU$304 million). 

Rail was fundamental to RLUSD’s purposes, as it operates through more than 12 banking partners and was forecasted to process over 10% of the US$36 billion (AU$55 billion) global business-to-business stablecoin payments market in 2025. 

Approval Follows GENIUS Act Establishment

The approvals followed the GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, which established a federal licensing framework for US stablecoin issuers. Ripple’s stablecoin business now falls under both New York Department of Financial Services and OCC oversight simultaneously.

In December 2025, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved a national trust bank charter for Ripple National Trust Bank, authorising asset and stablecoin reserve management under federal oversight while excluding deposit-taking and lending. 

Ripple was actually one of five crypto firms to receive conditional approvals in the same round, including Circle, BitGo, and Paxos.

Ripple Payments now operates on 51 real-time payment rails, holds more than 75 regulatory licences across the United States, the European Union, and Singapore’s Monetary Authority, and has processed over US$100 billion (AU$152 billion) in cumulative transaction volume.

RLUSD has reached approximately US$1.5 billion (AU$2.3 billion) in market capitalisation, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Back in July last year, Ripple appointed BNY Mellon as primary custodian of RLUSD reserves, which are held in cash and US Treasuries, as Crypto News Australia reported.

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