Why might an institution choose not to use XRP?

The full answer

Which reasons for skipping XRP hold up?

Three reasons have evidence behind them. An institution may need a settlement asset whose price does not move. It may have a direct market between two currencies that costs less than two trades through a bridge. Or a stablecoin pair may simply be cheaper at the moment of payment. Each is narrower than the claim that institutions will avoid XRP across the board.

Ripple’s own product shows the choice is open. Ripple said on March 3, 2026 that its platform lets customers collect, hold, exchange and pay out in both fiat and stablecoins, and that customer Corpay uses Ripple’s managed custody and liquidity management to fund and settle positions across Asia-Pacific with RLUSD [2]. Ripple also says its platform moves liquidity “for the right price across assets” [2]. Inside Ripple’s own system, XRP competes with stablecoins and fiat for each payment. The page on how Ripple’s payment system decides whether to route a payment through XRP covers that decision.

It does not always succeed: XRPL.org warns that the paths its servers return are not guaranteed to be the best.[10] How Ripple’s own router chooses is on how Ripple routes a payment. ## Do banks whose rules bar volatile assets now have a live alternative?

Yes, in pilot form. On September 5, 2026, DBS in Singapore and Citi’s New York office completed a weekend cross-border USD payment using tokenized deposits on Swift’s Digital Ledger, and it settled in minutes rather than the industry norm of up to two business days, CoinDesk reported on September 7, 2026 [1]. CoinDesk called it the second confirmed live transaction on the ledger, after HSBC and Standard Chartered’s first live cross-border transfer in August 2026 [1]. The ledger is a pilot that launched in July 2026 with 17 banks across six continents, according to the same report [1]. CoinDesk wrote that Swift’s network faces pressure from stablecoins and tokenized deposits that settle around the clock [1].

Volatility is the reason this matters. XRP closed the second quarter of 2026 at $1.04, down 20% from the end of the first quarter, CCN reported on August 20, 2026 [5]. A Yahoo Finance article of June 10, 2026 says Ondo’s OUSG fund mints and redeems in RLUSD because an institutional product needs a stable, regulated settlement asset, and XRP’s volatility rules it out for that job [4].

A bank that may hold deposits but not volatile cryptoassets now has a working cross-border option with no crypto-price exposure. That makes it less likely such a bank needs XRP. It does not show XRP being removed from routes where it is used today. The difference between deposit tokens, stablecoins and XRP is set out in what tokenized bank deposits are.

Law firm Skadden summarizes the Basel Committee’s crypto standard as putting cryptoassets “that do not meet the hedging recognition criteria” into Group 2b, which is “subject to a risk weight of 1,250%.”[8] Skadden adds that a bank’s Group 2 exposure “should not exceed 1% of its Tier 1 capital.”[8] It does not say which group XRP falls in.

Could a direct stablecoin pair beat the XRP route?

The evidence shows institutions already bridging with a stablecoin on the XRP Ledger itself. In May 2026, JPMorgan’s Kinexys, Mastercard, Ripple and Ondo ran the first cross-border, cross-bank redemption of a tokenized Treasury fund on the XRP Ledger, settling in under five seconds, according to the June 10, 2026 Yahoo Finance article [4]. The same article says RLUSD did the bridging, the banks handled the cash leg, and XRP covered the network fee [4]. It also says buying a tokenized Treasury on the XRP Ledger does not require buying XRP [4].

Stablecoin traffic on the ledger is large. RLUSD generated about $9 billion of transfer volume in Q2 2026, 90% of all stablecoin volume on the XRP Ledger, CCN reported on August 20, 2026 [5]. CCN added that billions of dollars can move across the ledger without creating substantial fee demand or meaningfully reducing XRP’s supply [5]. A Federal Reserve staff note of September 4, 2026 said payment stablecoins could arguably be more liquid than demand deposits, because blockchain transactions settle instantaneously while most payments between banks still take one to two days [6].

When a direct stablecoin market has a tighter spread than the two legs through XRP at the moment of payment, a router that prices each path takes the direct market. Which path wins changes with market conditions. The risk this poses on XRP’s own ledger is covered in whether direct stablecoin pairs could make XRP unnecessary.

The Basel Committee said on February 25, 2026 that it had “expedited a review of targeted elements” of the standard, with “an update” due “later this year.”[9] How those rules apply to XRP specifically is on how bank capital rules treat XRP. ## Which currency pairs are deep enough that direct FX beats an XRP route?

No public data found answers this. Depth and spreads for fiat pairs such as EUR/USD against an XRP route are listed under open questions below.

A bridged payment crosses two markets, into the bridge asset and out of it. A direct pair crosses one. Where a direct market between two currencies is already deep, a bridge has to beat it on combined cost. The case for a bridge is strongest between currencies that lack a deep direct market. This page cannot name which pairs fall on which side until pair-level data is sourced.

Can a bank use Ripple’s products without touching XRP?

Ripple’s own releases describe customers using its infrastructure around stablecoins. Ripple announced on April 30, 2026 that Kbank would deploy digital asset wallet infrastructure through Ripple Custody’s wallet-as-a-service instead of building it in-house [3]. Kbank’s CEO, Choi Woo-hyung, said the partnership marks a turning point in advancing the bank’s stablecoin-based remittance capabilities [3]. As Ripple describes them, the Kbank and Corpay examples rest on custody and RLUSD rather than on XRP as the settlement asset. The question is taken further in do banks actually need XRP, or just Ripple’s software.

What evidence points the other way?

Some regulated venues do accept XRP. Bitnomial, which runs a CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse, said on November 3, 2025 that XRP margin deposits are available to institutional clients who trade perpetuals, futures and options there [7]. Bitnomial said that acceptance is subject to all applicable regulatory approvals [7].

The June 2026 Yahoo Finance article also sets a condition under which XRP gets used: if tokenized assets start trading on the ledger rather than just being recorded there, XRP liquidity would get used in the process [4]. That is a conditional claim, not a measured result. The case for where XRP could hold an advantage, and what blocks it, is in what would give XRP a real competitive moat.