Ripple has secured its first European bank customer for its licensed payments stack, with Switzerland-based AMINA Bank adopting Ripple Payments to support near-real-time cross-border transfers for crypto-native clients, per a Friday release from the company.

AMINA, a FINMA-regulated digital asset bank, will use Ripple’s payments infrastructure to bridge traditional banking rails with blockchain-based settlement, a longstanding operational challenge for institutions servicing stablecoin issuers, crypto firms and tokenized asset platforms.

The move signals a shift in how regulated banks are approaching crypto payments as an integrated business line — infrastructure that needs to work directly with fiat systems.

Ripple Payments is an end-to-end platform that combines messaging, liquidity sourcing and settlement across both fiat and blockchain rails.

Unlike correspondent banking networks, which rely on multiple intermediaries and batch settlement, Ripple’s system allows banks to move value directly, often settling transactions within minutes.

In practical terms, this means AMINA can process cross-border flows involving fiat currencies and stablecoins, including Ripple’s own RLUSD, without routing payments through multiple correspondent banks or relying on delayed clearing cycles.

A key distinction is that Ripple Payments is licensed in multiple jurisdictions, allowing banks to integrate blockchain settlement without stepping outside regulatory frameworks.

For AMINA, this provides a compliant way to serve clients that operate natively on-chain but still require access to traditional banking services such as treasury management and fiat liquidity.

Earlier this year, AMINA became the first bank globally to support Ripple’s U.S. dollar stablecoin, RLUSD, by offering custody and trading services. The payments integration extends that relationship from asset support into transaction execution.

In effect, AMINA is using Ripple’s infrastructure as a connective layer between regulated banking systems and on-chain settlement, a model increasingly favored by institutions exploring tokenized assets, stablecoin issuance and cross-border treasury operations.

The partnership potentially strengthens Ripple’s positioning in Europe at a time when regulatory clarity is pushing banks to move from experimentation to production-grade blockchain use cases.

The company said in the release that its payments network now covers over 90% of global FX markets by volume, processing more than $95 billion in transactions.