Author：Encryption Tracker
Ripple’s move into traditional banking rails continues to fuel fresh speculation around XRP.
Market participants are revisiting long-standing ambitions to compete with SWIFT, with projections pointing to a potential multi-trillion-dollar role for the XRP Ledger.
Notably, the discussion gained traction after the news of Ripple Treasury becoming a SWIFT Certified Partner. This enables direct connectivity between blockchain settlement tools and SWIFT’s global banking network.
Key Points
- Ripple becomes a SWIFT Certified Partner, linking XRPL to global banking networks.
- Ripple Treasury merges fiat, RLUSD, and XRP management with SWIFT connectivity.
- Garlinghouse projects XRPL could handle 14% of SWIFT’s $150T annual volume.
- XRP price could reach $12–$24 if real usage and institutional demand align.
Ripple Treasury Links XRPL With SWIFT Infrastructure
Ripple Treasury, developed following Ripple’s $1 billion acquisition of GTreasury, seeks to merge traditional treasury operations with digital asset capabilities. The platform allows institutions to manage fiat, RLUSD, and XRP within a unified system.
Through its SWIFT partnership, Ripple Treasury integrates with SWIFT’s Alliance Lite2, giving enterprises direct access to bank connectivity. It also incorporates SWIFTRef data for IBAN and ABA lookups. This positions the platform as a bridge between legacy finance and blockchain-based settlement.
“Taking Over SWIFT”
Amid the news, XRP holders resurfaced a 2018 interview in which Brad Garlinghouse suggested Ripple was already on a path to challenge SWIFT’s dominance.
At the time, he pointed to Ripple’s growing network of financial institutions and highlighted dramatic cost reductions in remittance corridors. In particular, he cited a case in which a firm using Ripple’s technology saw transaction fees drop from $20 to $2. This, in turn, triggered a massive increase in usage.
His remarks emphasized Ripple’s ability to deliver efficiency improvements that traditional systems struggled to match, framing the company as a direct competitor rather than just a collaborator.
14% of SWIFT Volume and XRP Price Target
More recently, at the XRPL Apex event in 2025, Garlinghouse projected that the XRP Ledger could handle about 14% of SWIFT’s transaction volume within five years, focusing on moving money (liquidity), not just sending messages.
If SWIFT processes about $150 trillion a year, 14% would mean around $21 trillion flowing through XRP annually.
Based on this idea, if XRP is reused about 30 times per year, the system would need roughly $700 billion worth of XRP to handle that volume. That could put XRP’s price around $12 based on real usage alone. Adding investor and institutional demand, the estimates rise to roughly $18–$24, according to ChatGPT analysis.
Reality Check
Despite the bullish projections, this price outlook remains speculative, and actual outcomes could vary significantly.
Meanwhile, Ripple’s SWIFT Certified Partner status has added a new layer to the narrative. It suggests that rather than replacing SWIFT outright, the company may be positioning itself to operate within and alongside the existing system.
At the same time, a long-standing position held by Ripple executives is that the company is building an alternative financial path that could bypass the need for SWIFT entirely, effectively replacing it.
