Ripple’s CEO says XRP is positioned to capture 14% of SWIFT’s cross-border payments market within five years, as liquidity eclipses legacy messaging systems in global finance.

XRP on Track to Seize 14% of SWIFT’s Market by 2030, Says Ripple’s CEO

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse voiced confidence in XRP’s strategic position in global payments last week during the XRP APEX 2025 event in Singapore, framing it as a likely beneficiary of shifting liquidity dynamics. Garlinghouse focused his remarks on the evolving role of digital assets in cross-border transactions, highlighting the importance of liquidity over messaging infrastructure in the current financial ecosystem. His comments positioned XRP as an asset that could increasingly displace traditional systems such as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which has long dominated the interbank communication and settlement space.

The Ripple CEO explained: “There are two parts to SWIFT today: messaging and liquidity. Liquidity is owned by the banks. I think less about the messaging and more about liquidity. If you’re driving all the liquidity, it is good for XRP.” He added:

I’ll say five years, 14%.

Garlinghouse’s emphasis on liquidity highlights the core limitation of SWIFT, a network that facilitates messaging between financial institutions but does not move money itself. SWIFT’s model relies on multiple intermediaries, manual processes, and often inconsistent messaging standards, creating vulnerabilities to errors, high fees, and slow settlement times.

Ripple also underscored these criticisms in a May blog post, describing SWIFT’s infrastructure as outdated and misaligned with modern commerce. The company wrote:

Most cross border payments still rely on manual processes. A typo in an account number, an incorrect SWIFT code or incomplete payment instructions can all cause a transaction to fail.

The crypto firm promoted its blockchain-based Ripple Payments system as an advanced alternative, leveraging XRP and the Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin to offer real-time, transparent, and lower-cost settlements across borders. The platform claims access to over 90% of the world’s FX markets and seeks to reduce operational risks.