How Ripple built a blockchain bank without a banking license

For years, Ripple was best known for its legal battles and its token, XRP, which symbolized crypto's friction with the traditional financial world. Now, after years of courtroom and regulatory turbulence, Ripple has quietly built something far more ambitious: a full-stack institutional financial platform that resembles a 21st-century investment bank, albeit without a bank charter yet. With the launch of Ripple Prime, the firm's new digital-asset brokerage, and the integration of Ripple Payments and Ripple Custody, Ripple is positioning itself at the center of a growing network that settles, secures, and moves digital money globally. These components form an ecosystem where every transaction, settlement, and custody layer runs on Ripple’s rails, powered by XRP and RLUSD (its regulated dollar-backed stablecoin).

After securing legal clarity in its case with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ripple began spending heavily to reposition itself from a blockchain company to a regulated financial infrastructure provider. Its 2025 acquisition spree—comprising prime broker Hidden Road, custody firm Palisade, treasury-management platform GTreasury, and stablecoin payments provider Rail—now forms the foundation of a vertically integrated enterprise spanning trading, custody, payments, and liquidity management.

Ripple Prime acts as the trading front end. Ripple Custody secures institutional assets through advanced technologies like multi-party computation (MPC) and zero-trust architecture. Ripple Payments facilitates real-time settlements across multiple blockchains and fiat corridors. At its core, Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin serves as the universal medium of exchange across all services, creating what many are calling a crypto-native equivalent of JPMorgan.

What sets Ripple apart from competitors is the deep integration of its internal ecosystem. Ripple’s liquidity design creates an intentional closed loop: institutional clients trade via Ripple Prime, store their assets in Ripple Custody, and settle payments through Ripple Payments, all using XRP and RLUSD as the connective tissue.

This circular liquidity system minimizes friction, enhances transaction speed, and keeps value circulating within Ripple's ecosystem. Comparisons have been drawn to Apple’s “walled-garden” model, with Ripple applying a similar principle to institutional finance. By owning its rails, its currency, and its custody services, Ripple delivers unmatched compliance, speed, and cost efficiency. This strategy is already yielding results: XRP trading volumes have surged to multi-year highs, and RLUSD's circulating supply surpassed $1 billion in November 2023, reflecting over 30% month-on-month growth.

Ripple’s pursuit of regulatory credibility is further deepening trust among institutional investors. The company has formally applied for a national bank charter from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). If approved, Ripple would operate under both state (NYDFS) and federal oversight.

Additionally, Ripple has taken steps to secure a Federal Reserve Master Account through its subsidiary, Standard Custody, enabling RLUSD reserves to be held directly with the Fed. This eliminates intermediary risk and provides an additional layer of assurance, setting new benchmarks for stablecoin transparency and trust. This approach, emphasizing openness and oversight, could attract institutional investors disillusioned with opaque reserve practices in the crypto space.

Ripple’s broader vision aims to replicate the core functions of a global bank using crypto infrastructure. Where legacy banks depend on SWIFT messages and multi-day settlements, Ripple offers near-instant clearance through its blockchain-based payment rails. Where traditional banks rely on custodians and clearinghouses, Ripple embeds custody and settlement directly into its protocol stack.

RLUSD, Ripple’s native stablecoin, is positioned as a replacement for traditional credit, backed by short-term Treasuries and cash instead of loans. Ripple's CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, has described this evolution as leveraging the advantages of XRP and blockchain technology to modernize traditional finance rather than rebelling against it. By bridging regulated finance and decentralized settlement, Ripple supports tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), enabling seamless on-chain movement of Treasuries and corporate cash.

Ripple’s future is no longer tied solely to the performance of XRP. The token remains a liquidity bridge, but the company’s primary focus has shifted to infrastructure and institutional adoption. The acquisition of GTreasury has provided Ripple with access to thousands of Fortune 500 treasurers, enabling RLUSD to integrate into massive corporate cash management workflows.

By embedding RLUSD into these processes, it is evolving into a mainstream treasury instrument for payments, yield optimization, and liquidity management. Ripple’s vertically integrated model strengthens these services: custody ensures fund security, Prime provides liquidity, Payments facilitates capital movement, and RLUSD underpins it all. With the pending OCC charter and the potential Federal Reserve account, Ripple is transforming into a “bank without a bank”, operating entirely within US financial law regulations.

Ripple President Monica Long emphasized that the company is focused on modernizing cross-border value movement by replacing legacy systems built on “walled gardens” with open, interoperable infrastructure. While decentralized finance (DeFi) has mainly catered to crypto-native users, Ripple sees an opportunity to extend these benefits to the broader financial system.

This transformative vision represents a radical shift. The company that once fought to defend XRP’s legitimacy is now positioned to shape the architecture of regulated crypto finance. Whether it rivals Wall Street or merges with it, Ripple’s next chapter could signify one conclusion: the future of banking may no longer belong to banks.