How does a bank go from an ODL pilot to full volume?

The full answer

Ripple publishes a step-by-step onboarding process for institutions that want to send payments through On-Demand Liquidity (ODL), the service that uses XRP as the bridge currency to exchange one fiat currency for another [2]. The process ends with a ramp from 1% to 100% of ODL volume [1]. How XRP sits inside each payment is covered in how ODL uses XRP; this page covers how a customer gets from first contact to full flow.

What are the stages Ripple documents?

Ripple’s onboarding process page (undated, checked September 2026) says the process is specific to Ripple Payments with ODL customers integrating with RippleNet, and that a Ripple customer partner engineer manages it [1]. It lists these milestones [1]:

1. Project planning, which starts with a kickoff meeting.
2. Solution design, where the customer reviews the ODL payment flow, gathers requirements and projects transaction and volume forecasts.
3. Implementation, where the customer sets up the ODL test environment, develops middleware for the RippleNet API and tests the payment flow.
4. User acceptance testing, where the customer migrates to the ODL UAT environment and runs ODL flow test cases.
5. Production launch, where the customer confirms forecasts, migrates to production, funds the digital asset exchange account, executes and validates the production verification test, and increases ODL volume from 1% to 100%.
6. Post-launch review, where Ripple collects customer feedback and introduces its Technical Services team.

What happens between the first test payment and full volume?

Ripple’s onboarding overview (undated, checked September 2026) describes three environments [2]. In the test environment, the exchanges auto-lock accepted quotes and simulate completed payments. In UAT, partners are real but currency movement is simulated. In production, both are actual. Before releasing an integration, the overview says the sender should make some small test payments through the production environments [2].

The same page says the sender must set up its account directly with each exchange it plans to use: pre-fund the source exchange account, generate exchange API keys and upload those credentials to ODL [2]. Business relationships with peers typically include nostro/vostro accounts or digital asset exchange accounts, and the details vary between jurisdictions and peers [2]. This means ODL moves prefunding to an exchange account rather than removing it at the sending end. Whether that is cheaper is a separate question, taken up in whether the prefunding problem is real.

Does a bank need a direct relationship with an XRP liquidity provider?

Ripple’s documentation says no. It also says a sender does not need to hold or transact in XRP to send payments through ODL [2]. Which exchanges sit on each side of a payment is covered in which exchanges provide XRP liquidity for ODL.

How many customers have actually gone from 1% to 100%?

No public source gives a count as of September 30, 2026. Ripple’s pages describe the ramp but give no number of customers who completed it, and no timeline [1].

The closest public evidence is narrower. AllAboutXRP, in a directory updated 8 September 2026, found public sources clearly connecting four institutions to XRP-based payment flows: SBI Remit, Bitso, Tranglo and Cuallix [3]. It records Cuallix as an early xRapid pilot, and for Tranglo it notes that Ripple documented an XRP-based ODL rollout but that the current asset mix is not disclosed per payment [3]. It adds that historical evidence proves a documented use at that time, not that every current transaction still uses XRP [3]. One documented production case, Japan remittances, is covered in how SBI uses XRP for remittances.

Why do some pilots stall or never reach full volume?

No public source documents why a particular ODL pilot stalled, as of September 30, 2026. AllAboutXRP says exploration, pilot, partnership and live production describe different levels of adoption, and should not be treated as the same thing [3].

The documented sequence shows where a project can wait. Each milestone depends on the one before it, business relationships vary by jurisdiction [2], and the sender must fund an exchange account before the production test [1]. A customer can also stop at any point on the 1% to 100% ramp, because the documentation gives no requirement to reach 100% [1].

What is the strongest case against reading this as XRP adoption?

The documented process shows how a customer can go live. It does not show that many have. 24/7 Wall St. reported on 1 April 2026 that only around 40% of RippleNet partners use ODL, and that most bank ties to Ripple are to the network infrastructure rather than to the XRP token [4]. Ripple’s own product direction has also widened: its 3 March 2026 release describes Ripple Payments as a platform to collect, hold, exchange and pay out in fiat and stablecoins, reports more than $100 billion in processed volume, and says customer Corpay settles positions across Asia-Pacific with RLUSD [5]. The same release says much of the industry remains in the pilot phase while Ripple is live across more than 60 major markets [5]. None of these figures separates ODL volume from other volume, which is the subject of how much of Ripple’s payment volume uses XRP.