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Ripple is making its bid for the enterprise stablecoin infrastructure market, unveiling an expanded payments platform that combines custody, virtual accounts and cross-border settlement into a single stack.
The move comes as competition for institutional stablecoin rails intensifies. Stripe completed its $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge in February and just yesterday announced a partnership with Visa to roll out stablecoin-linked cards across 100+ countries, while Circle continues to expand USDC's institutional footprint. The prize: serving as the plumbing for what the industry sees as a multi-trillion dollar shift in how money moves globally.
Ripple's play is vertical integration. The company has folded its acquisitions of custody provider Palisade and virtual accounts firm Rail into Ripple Payments, now offering managed custody, automated collections via virtual accounts, and fiat-stablecoin conversion — functions that would otherwise require stitching together multiple vendors.
"Success in this space requires enterprise-grade infrastructure, extensive licensing, and deep liquidity — capabilities few can match," Monica Long, Ripple's president, said in a statement.
The platform is live in over 60 markets with more than $100 billion in processed volume, according to the company. New customers include AMINA Bank, a FINMA-regulated Swiss institution and the first European bank to adopt the service, along with UAE digital bank Zand and Brazil's Banco Genial.
The expansion also gives Ripple a distribution channel for RLUSD, its dollar-pegged stablecoin launched late last year — potentially the more strategic play as stablecoin issuers compete not just on trust and liquidity, but on the rails that make their tokens usable.
