Ripple’s Bold Assault on SWIFT: How XRP’s Surge Fuels a 14% Market Share Grab

Ripple isn't just knocking on SWIFT's door—it's kicking it down. With XRP's price rally acting as rocket fuel, the crypto upstart is gunning for a 14% slice of the global payments pie. Here's how the David vs. Goliath battle is playing out.

The SWIFT Disruption Playbook

While legacy finance sleeps on blockchain, Ripple's tech cuts settlement times from days to seconds. No more waiting for correspondent banks to wake up—just real-time value moving at internet speed.

XRP's Liquidity Moonshot

The token's surge isn't just trader hype. It's becoming the grease in Ripple's cross-border machinery, with institutions finally treating crypto as more than a casino chip.

Wall Street's Cold Feet (As Usual)

Banks love blockchain—until they realize it might actually replace them. Ripple's growth exposes finance's dirty secret: most 'innovation' is just putting lipstick on a 50-year-old messaging system.

One thing's clear: in the race to move money globally, the tortoise (SWIFT) might finally have a hare problem.

Ripple Is Challenging SWIFT’s System

While speaking at a recent summit, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse asserted that Ripple plans to capture up to 14% of SWIFT’s current cross-border volume within five years. SWIFT has long dominated international money transfers by acting as a messaging system that routes instructions between correspondent banks. Ripple, on the other hand, offers a fully integrated infrastructure through its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) network, which uses XRP as a bridge currency. This bypasses the need for pre-funded nostro accounts and speeds up transactions to mere seconds, with low average fees of just $0.0002. 

SWIFT transactions can take days and come with hefty costs; Ripple’s approach is faster, cheaper, and more efficient. According to an XRP 101 guide posted on the social media platform X by crypto commentator John Squire, the main problem XRP solves is making near-instant, low-cost transfers across borders. This, in turn, makes it attractive to traditional banks and institutions.

Banks Tapping In To Ripple’s Real-World Utility

Interestingly, recent developments in the banking world have seen Ripple inching closer every day to its goal of capturing a 14% share of the $150 trillion cross-border payments market. The clearest sign of Ripple’s success is its growing use for remittance, mostly in regions where banking inefficiencies are most pronounced. 

In the Philippines, for instance, UnionBank has become the first fully licensed virtual-asset bank and has adopted RippleNet and ODL to support faster inbound transfers. ChinaBank, another bank in the Philippines, in collaboration with Qatar National Bank, has implemented XRP-backed transfers to eliminate intermediary banks for transactions between Qatar and the Philippines.

In India, major private banks like Yes Bank and Axis Bank are using XRP to support live remittance corridors linking the country to Southeast Asia, Mexico, and Brazil. 

Interestingly, Ripple is also deepening its reach in Brazil and other countries in Latin America. Travelex Bank in Brazil, the first FX-focused bank licensed to use ODL in the region, relies on XRP to remove the need for pre-funded liquidity. In Mexico, Ripple’s partnerships with local non-bank financial entities support real-time payouts using XRP. 

Even in the Middle East, where regulatory compliance is very tough, institutions like LuLu Exchange, Zand Bank, and Mamo have adopted Ripple’s payment infrastructure for regulated settlements, largely focused on APAC and global remittance corridors.