Ripple CEO Predicts XRP Could Hold 14% of SWIFT's Cross-Border Payment Volume in the Next 5 Years, Leveraging Superior Liquidation Advantages.
Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple's CEO, has made a bold prediction about XRP's potential to dominate the global payment market at the XRP APEX 2025 event in Singapore last week. According to the CEO, XRP is well-positioned to capture a significant market share from SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) by controlling global liquidation flows.
Garlinghouse emphasized the core difference between two components of the current SWIFT system: messaging and liquidation. He explained: "SWIFT currently has two parts: messaging and liquidation. Liquidation is controlled by banks. I'm not very interested in the messaging part, but I'm interested in liquidation. If you can control the liquidation flow, that's an advantage for XRP."
When asked about a specific market share, Garlinghouse confidently stated: "I'll say 5 years, 14%." This figure reflects Ripple's ambitious goal of reshaping the global cross-border payment ecosystem.
SWIFT's Structural Weaknesses
Garlinghouse's perspective targets the core structural weakness of SWIFT – a network primarily supporting message exchange between financial institutions without actually processing fund movements. SWIFT's current model relies on multiple intermediaries, manual processes, and inconsistent messaging standards, leading to error risks, high costs, and slow payment times.
Ripple has publicly criticized these limitations in a May blog post, calling SWIFT's infrastructure "outdated" and "unsuitable for modern commerce". The company emphasized: "Most cross-border payment transactions still depend on manual processes. A typo in the account number, incorrect SWIFT code, or incomplete payment instructions can cause the transaction to fail."
To address these weaknesses, Ripple is promoting the Ripple Payments system – a blockchain-based payment platform using XRP and Ripple USD (RLUSD), a stablecoin. The platform claims to provide cross-border payment services in real-time, with greater transparency and significantly lower costs compared to traditional systems.
According to Ripple, their platform can access over 90% of the global foreign exchange market and aims to minimize operational risks. If Garlinghouse's prediction becomes reality, XRP could mark a significant transformation in how global financial institutions conduct cross-border payments.
