How Ripple built a blockchain bank without a banking license

For years, Ripple was best known for his legal battles and his symbol, XRPwhich was a symbol of crypto’s friction with the traditional financial world.

Now, after years of court and regulatory turmoil, Ripple has quietly built something much more ambitious: a full institutional financial platform that looks like a 21st century investment bank, even if it doesn’t yet have a bank card.

With the launch of Ripple Prime, the new brokerage of the company’s digital assets, and the integration of Ripple Payments and Ripple caseRipple positions itself at the center of a growing network that settles, secures and moves digital money around the world.

Together, these components form an ecosystem where every transaction, settlement and custody layer runs on the Ripple binaries and is powered by XRP and RLUSDits stablecoin backed by the regulated dollar.

From token issuer to financial infrastructure behemoth

After ensuring legal clarity in his case with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United StatesRipple has begun spending heavily to reposition itself from a blockchain company to a regulated financial infrastructure provider.

Its 2025 acquisition, including the first broker Hidden Road, the custody firm Palisade, GTreasury treasury management platformand 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. Ripple Custody secures institutional assets through a blend of multiparty computation (MPC) and zero-trust architecture.

Ripple Payments handles real-time settlements through multiple blockchain and fiat corridors. And Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin ties it all together as the universal medium of exchange in these services.

In effect, Ripple has built a crypto-native equivalent of JPMorgan. It would be an entity that provides liquidity, clearing and settlement without relying on legacy banking infrastructure.

The difference is that Ripple’s rails are programmable and transparent, with every dollar and XRP token counted on the chain.

A closed loop of liquidity and trust

What makes Ripple’s strategy distinct from its competitors is how integrated its internal ecosystem has become.

Ripple’s liquidity design is intentionally circular: institutional clients trade through Ripple Prime, store assets in Ripple Custody, and settle payments via Ripple Payments, all using XRP and RLUSD as the connective tissue.

The result is a closed liquidity loop that reduces friction, improves speed and keeps value circulating within Ripple’s own ecosystem.

In particular, this reflects the “walled garden” model that Apple has perfected in consumer technology, which gives control over every layer, from hardware to the App Store.

Ripple applies the same principle to institutional finance. By providing rails, currency and custody, it ensures compliance, speed and cost efficiency across its entire product stack.

Already, Ripple’s approach is showing results.

The trading volume of XRP has increased to multi-year highs this year amid significant adoption, while RLUSD’s supply exceeded $1 billion in November, up more than 30% month-on-month.

Interestingly, a large part of that demand came from institutional counterparties using RLUSD to hedge exposure and settle cross-border obligations.

In particular, Ripple’s pursuit of regulatory credibility is the depth of that trust.

The company has formally applied for a national bank card from the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). If approved, it will operate under state (NYDFS) and federal oversight.

At the same time, Ripple also moved to secure a Federal Reserve Master Account through its subsidiary, Standard Custody. This access will allow the reserves of RLUSD to be held directly with the Fed, eliminating the intermediary risk and providing an additional layer of insurance.

For institutional investors wary of opaque reserve practices, that combination could set a new benchmark for stablecoin transparency and trust.

The end of banking as we know it

Ripple’s broader vision seems clear: to replicate the core functions of a global bank using cryptographic infrastructure.

Where legacy banks rely on SWIFT messages and multi-day settlements, Ripple offers near-instant clearing through its blockchain-based payment rails.

Where banks use custodians and clearinghouses, Ripple incorporates custody and settlement directly into its protocol stack. And where banks issue credit and manage liquidity, Ripple deploys its native stablecoin, RLUSD, to fulfill the same role, but backed by short-term Treasuries and cash rather than loans.

Ripple executives frame this evolution not as a rebellion against traditional finance, but as its modernization. Brad GarlinghouseCEO of Ripple, he said: :

“[Ripple is] we are pursuing opportunities to massively transform the space, leveraging our unique position and XRP’s strengths to accelerate our business and enhance our current solutions and technologies.”

With these layers in place, Ripple is effectively bridging the gap between regulated finance and the decentralized establishment. Its infrastructure already supports it Tokenized Real World Assets (RWA)which allows chain representations of Treasuries and corporate money to move like data packets.

Beyond XRP: A Wider Financial Empire

The future of Ripple no longer depends on the performance of the XRP market. The token remains a liquidity bridge, but the company’s core business is now infrastructure and institutional adoption.

Its acquisition of GTreasury opened the doors to thousands of Fortune 500 treasurers managing trillions in short-term assets, giving RLUSD direct entry into corporate cash management.

By embedding RLUSD in these workflows, it could evolve from an exchange token into a mainstream treasury tool used for payments, performance optimization and liquidity management.

Each layer of the Ripple stack reinforces the others: custody secures funds, Prime provides liquidity, Payments facilitates the movement of capital, and RLUSD supports it all.

With the pending OCC charter and potential Fed account, Ripple is moving closer to becoming the first native blockchain institution with banking authority. In effect, it is building a “bank without a bank”, operating entirely within the scope of US financial law.

Ripple President Monica Long framed the mission of the company succinctly. According to her, the company is focused on modernizing how value moves across borders by replacing legacy systems built on “walled gardens” and fragmented payment binaries with open and interoperable infrastructure.

She noted that while decentralized finance has so far mainly been for crypto-native users, Ripple sees an opportunity to extend its benefits to the wider financial system and to dismantle those long-standing barriers.

This effectively means that the company that once fought for the legitimacy of XRP will now be shaping the architecture of regulated cryptography. However, whether it rivals Wall Street or merges with it, the next chapter of Ripple suggests the same conclusion: the future of banking cannot belong to banks.