Journal of Financial Planning: September 2025
Ivory Johnson, CFP®, ChFC, is the founder of Delancey Wealth Management, LLC (www.delanceywealth.com). Mr. Johnson has a B.S. in finance from Penn State University, has been certified by the Digital Asset Council for Financial Professionals, and is a member of the CNBC Financial Advisor Council.
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Nobody could have imagined the internet when the telegraph came to pass in the 1830s. This, despite earlier claims that the printing press had already revolutionized the dissemination of information and what could possibly top that? Still, the ability to send information through an electrical signal was a significant breakthrough in commerce. It allowed business to be conducted at record-breaking speed, even if the transaction could not be immediately settled. The slow movement of gold, therefore, made a central ledger the load-bearing wall of trade, the means by which these matters were summarized so each party would know who owned what.
Nevertheless, man’s insatiable demand to evolve led us from one communications breakthrough to another, each more pioneering than the last. Throughout all of this, the central ledger has survived the test of time, seemingly unbothered by the transistor, the internet, and artificial intelligence. Time, however, is no more stationary than it is prone to keeping secrets. The speed at which our money flows across borders is now quite labored, sharing a greater resemblance to the way an old man attempts to keep pace with his grandchild than a modern-day monetary system.
The plumbing that underlies cross-border payments is archaic, fragmented, and riddled with intermediaries. Ripple Labs and its digital asset XRP have stepped in to fill this black hole of inefficiency, not as mere speculative instrument, but as a legitimate challenger to the old guard with the potential to reshape monetary infrastructure on a global scale.
Challenger to Incumbent International Payments Network
Ripple Labs is a San Francisco-based fintech company founded in 2012 with a goal to build the internet of value. In simple terms, Ripple wants to do for money what the internet did for information—make it move globally, instantly, and cheaply. At the center of Ripple’s technology menu is XRP, a digital asset used to facilitate cross-border payments. In other words, Ripple is the company and XRP is the token.
XRP operates on a decentralized, open-source blockchain called the XRP Ledger (XRPL), known for its speed (transactions finalize in three to five seconds), low cost (fractions of a penny per transaction), and scalability (1,500 transactions per second, compared to Bitcoin’s seven) (Sergeenkov 2024). The XRP Ledger doesn’t use energy-intensive mining like Bitcoin. Instead, it relies on a unique consensus protocol verified by a group of validators distributed across the globe.
This is in stark contrast to the SWIFT network, the existing backbone of international payments, which is a messaging protocol connecting over 11,500 banks worldwide that handles over $5 trillion in daily payments (Jones 2024). SWIFT doesn’t actually move money; instead it sends payment instructions. The actual funds are shuffled between banks using nostro/vostro accounts, which tie up an estimated $27 trillion dollars in parked liquidity before the transaction is settled.1
Ripple’s vision is to replace or complement this system using XRP as a bridge asset. Instead of banks holding foreign currencies in multiple countries, they could hold XRP to facilitate real-time currency conversion and settlement. This reduces the need for capital-intensive pre-funding of accounts and frees up liquidity. If a U.S. business wants to pay a supplier in Thailand, they would use RippleNet (Ripple’s payment network), so the dollars are converted into XRP, sent across the globe in seconds, and converted into Thai baht on the other end. Best of all, it happens within a single transaction.
This is where the telegraph meets the internet. With SWIFT, cross-border payments typically took two to five days due to intermediaries, time zone delays, and manual reconciliation, while XRP settles in three to five seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It not only reduces counterparty risk but enhances liquidity management and improves real-time global commerce.
Please note that SWIFT GPI was launched in 2017 and now settles in minutes to a few hours depending on the specific route, the banks involved, and hour of the day, with nearly 60 percent being credited to beneficiaries within 30 minutes and 100 percent credited within 24 hours, according to SWIFT (n.d.). The new protocol made international payments significantly faster, more transparent, and more traceable in 2025 as compared to the legacy SWIFT.
Still, the average fees for SWIFT range from $10 to $50 per transaction plus the forex spread (Levro 2024). XRP ledger, on the other hand, costs a fraction of a cent per transaction and ultimately creates savings for remittance companies, import/export businesses, and even governments disbursing international aid. Moreover, Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service doesn’t require pre-funded nostro/vostro accounts in each country because it converts fiat to XRP and settles instantly, eliminating the need for parked capital that unlocks up to $27 trillion in dormant liquidity globally, which can be reallocated to lending, investing, or development.
When XRP becomes what’s known as a liquidity layer, ensuring consistent and seamless access to liquidity as users move between different platforms, it has the potential to generate a liquidity multiplier effect, similar to how fractional reserve banking amplifies deposit creation. By being recycled rapidly in international transactions, a relatively small amount of XRP could support a much larger volume of global payment flows.
Experts also suggest that blockchain provides end-to-end traceability, making it easier to track and audit payments and even allows AML/KYC integration to be done where devices connect and data is created, used, and exchanged. Not only would XRP reduce costs and in many cases transaction times, but it would enhance regulatory reporting, reduce fraud, and support anti-money laundering (AML) and anti-terrorist financing (ATF) efforts.
Growing Network of Adopters, but Institutional Challenges Remain
All of this might sound too good to be true, but you’ll have to tell that to the over 70 markets, with hundreds of financial institutions onboarded through RippleNet (Finextra 2023). These include remittance services, small banks, and even multinational players that already use Ripple’s ODL service. Ripple has already engaged with central banks across more than 20 countries, helping pilot central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) since 90 percent of central banks are exploring digital versions of their currency (Jones 2024).
There are over 300 global financial institutions (Ripple 2019) that include PNC, American Express, and Santander (Ripple 2018) already using, adopting, or exploring XRP. It has also participated in white papers and task forces led by institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF)2 and Bank for International Settlements (BIS), exploring the role of interoperable digital money.
If Ripple and XRP were to be formally integrated into these systems, it would represent a paradigm shift. Instead of central banks settling transactions over multi-day networks like the Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) or SWIFT, they could use blockchain rails that consummate the transaction in seconds. Ripple wants to be more than just a payments company, but a backbone for digital monetary infrastructure.
These advances do not come without obstacles. Ripple has applied for a national bank charter with the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to become a full-fledged financial intermediary (Nishant 2025). This charter would allow Ripple to custody digital assets, facilitate lending, and potentially gain direct access to Fed services such as the Federal Reserve’s FedNow system for instant payments or even participation in the discount window for liquidity support.
As promising as that might sound, a bank charter requires minimum capital adequacy (usually $20–30 million for smaller banks, more for a national fintech bank), a detailed business plan, a robust compliance framework for anti-money laundering (AML), the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and demonstrated risk controls for cybersecurity and financial exposure.
Many of the advances Ripple offers will not come without a fight. Institutional players won’t move serious volume until there’s clear, coordinated global regulation. Replacing SWIFT would also threaten entrenched interests, jobs, and national infrastructures, so we can expect resistance from major banks and regulators invested in maintaining control over the status quo. The breakthrough of SWIFT GPI also removes some of the concerns about settlement times, and it’s worth mentioning that price volatility still creates some anxiety for risk-averse institutions.
Finally, nations may fear losing control over monetary surveillance, sanctions enforcement, or capital controls, and there is no global consensus in the short term, even if the tech is ready. If we’re being honest, China, Russia, and the United States may resist any neutral, cross-border solution they don’t directly influence. Keep in mind that over 130 countries are exploring or developing CBDCs,3 and many central banks may prefer to use CBDCs for cross-border settlement instead of an independent asset like XRP.
Hypothetical Price Scenario for XRP
These concerns haven’t prevented the social media research analysts and “get rich by 3 p.m. next Tuesday” visionaries from predicting XRP price targets as high as $1,000, a significant premium from the current price of $2.50 as I write this article. This may be a good time to examine XRP as an investment in clear terms, taking into account the volume, velocity, and supply of the token.
The volume is the daily SWIFT cross-border payments estimated to be $5 trillion a day, the velocity is how many times a single XRP is reused in one day, and the current supply of the token is 55 billion (and counting), although it is capped at 100 billion (McGimpsey 2024). Let’s assume that Ripple’s XRP Ledger fully replaces SWIFT and each XRP is reused 10 times per day, a practical but not aggressive assumption. Once you divide the liquidity pool of $5 trillion by a velocity of 10, you get a liquidity pool of $500 billion. To arrive at the price of XRP, you would divide $500 billion by the supply of 55 billion tokens to arrive at $9.09 per XRP. Should XRP be used five times a day, the price would be $18.18.
A case can be made that if XRP becomes a global settlement layer for interbank transactions, tokenized assets, CBDCs, and smart contracts would pull liquidity from more than just SWIFT, but the $27 trillion in nostro/vostro balances, $5 trillion in daily forex and derivatives settlements, and $5 trillion in tokenized asset layers. In this instance, the outcome might look similar if XRP facilitates $10 trillion transactions across all cases with a velocity of 20, which would also work out to $9.09 per XRP.
The price projection, therefore, changes with the underlying assumptions of velocity, liquidity pool, and supply of XRP. Could we reach an astronomical number based on more favorable variables coupled with speculation and increased global activity? Perhaps, but the only reason anyone gets upset is because their expectations haven’t been met, and for what it’s worth, getting 4× on your money is nothing to sneeze at.
Investors cannot buy XRP through an ETF the way they have access to bitcoin or Ethereum. These tokens can only be purchased on a cryptocurrency exchange such as Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, Uphold, etc. An RIA can also establish a relationship with Securitize.io to manage coins directly without using the securitized version in an ETF, while Turnqey Labs offers real-time data aggregation for performance reporting on held-away crypto assets.
Conclusion
In a world facing de-dollarization pressures, inflation volatility, and global coordination failures, Ripple offers a neutral, programmable, and scalable alternative to traditional payment rails. Its approach is regulatory first, institutionally focused, and deeply integrated into the financial system’s pain points. This is indeed a monetary lubricant and, if adopted broadly, can reduce frictions, free up dormant capital, increase the velocity of money, and reduce systemic risk in cross-border payment systems.
Most investors are watching the stock market, but a parallel financial universe is quietly being built. We’re a long way from the telegraph, so enjoy the ride. Ripple isn’t just moving money faster; it’s building the roads on which the future of finance will drive.
Endnotes
- These are outdated numbers based on McKinsey’s 2016 report, “Global Payments 2016: Strong Fundamentals Despite Uncertain Times.” I haven’t identified newer data and there is no updated McKinsey report that addresses the matter. For what it’s worth, Ripple claims there is $5 trillion in nostro/vostro, but I couldn’t find any source or any means to confirm the number. What we know for certain is the current SWIFT network still uses nostro/vostro accounts.
- The paper “Trust Bridges and Money Flows: A Digital Marketplace to Improve Cross-Border Payments” by Tobias Adrian, Rodney Garratt, Dong He, and Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli was published by the International Monetary Fund in March 2023, and in July 2023 by the Bank for International Settlements.
- See www.atlanticcouncil.org/cbdctracker/ to see the status of individual countries’ virtual currency projects.
References
Finextra. 2023, December 11. “RippleNet Becomes Ripple Payments.” www.finextra.com/pressarticle/99089/ripplenet-becomes-ripple-payments.
Jones, Marc. 2024, March 26. “SWIFT Planning Launch of New Central Bank Digital Currency Platform in 12–24 Months.” Reuters. www.reuters.com/business/finance/swift-planning-launch-new-central-bank-digital-currency-platform-12-24-months-2024-03-25/.
Levro. 2024, January 2. “SWIFT Transfer Fees Explained.” www.levro.com/blog/swift-transfer-fees-explained.
McGimpsey, Patrick, and Nikita Tambe. 2024, November 29. “XRP Price Prediction: Will Ripple Make Waves in 2025.” Forbes. www.forbes.com/advisor/in/investing/cryptocurrency/xrp-price-prediction/.
Nishant, Niket. 2025, July 2. “Ripple Applies for US National Bank Charter as Crypto Eyes Next Frontier.” Reuters. www.reuters.com/business/finance/ripple-applies-us-national-bank-charter-crypto-eyes-next-frontier-2025-07-02/.
Ripple. 2018, September 19. “PNC Bank Embraces Blockchain and Joins RippleNet.” https://ripple.com/insights/pnc-bank-embraces-blockchain-and-joins-ripplenet/.
Ripple. 2019, November 7. “RippleNet Growth: Announcing More Than 300 Customers.” https://ripple.com/insights/ripplenet-growth-announcing-more-than-300-customers/.
Sergeenkov, Andrey. 2024, October 27. “What Is Ripple (XRP)?” Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/article/what-is-ripple-xrp/.
SWIFT GPI. n.d. “The Digital Transformation of Cross-Border Payments.” www.swift.com/products/swift-gpi.
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