{ "id": 48091, "date": "2025-09-07T20:53:49", "date_gmt": "2025-09-07T13:53:49", "guid": { "rendered": "https:\/\/hbbgroup.net\/ripples-sec-battle-is-over-time-to-challenge-swift\/" }, "modified": "2025-09-07T20:53:49", "modified_gmt": "2025-09-07T13:53:49", "slug": "ripples-sec-battle-is-over-time-to-challenge-swift", "status": "publish", "type": "post", "link": "https:\/\/hbbgroup.net\/en_us\/ripples-sec-battle-is-over-time-to-challenge-swift\/", "title": { "rendered": "Ripple\u2019s SEC battle is over: Time to challenge SWIFT?" }, "content": { "rendered": "
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Ripple has finally finished its legal battle against the US Securities and Exchange Commission, bringing legal clarity to its underlying coin, XRP (XRP<\/a>). Now observers are asking whether XRP can finally focus on providing a viable alternative to SWIFT.<\/p>\n

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) has been the backbone of international money transfers since its founding in 1973. However, for several years, critics have said that the system is outdated.<\/p>\n

Many in the blockchain industry, including Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, argue that blockchain technology provides higher throughput and better transparency, making it a superior alternative to SWIFT.<\/p>\n

Now that Ripple\u2019s legal battles have calmed down, can it provide a reasonable alternative to SWIFT?<\/p>\n

How does Ripple stack up to SWIFT?<\/h2>\n

Over 50 years ago, SWIFT replaced Telex as the coding system underpinning worldwide financial transactions. The system does not send money itself but rather provides standardized codes and a secure messaging platform through which banks can coordinate money transfers.<\/p>\n

A customer will make a money transfer request. Their bank will then send the request to the recipient bank, and that request may go through several other banks in the network. Actual settlement happens through established banking relationships and clearing systems.<\/p>\n

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SWIFT processes over 53 million messages daily across 40,000 payment routes, 220 countries and over 11,500 institutions.<\/p>\n

But there are some major complaints with SWIFT. Transactions can take several days and are rife with fees. Furthermore, the complex network of bank partners means it is more difficult to ensure visibility.<\/p>\n

There are also delays and failures. SWIFT said<\/a> in January 2024 that one in 10 transactions fails, while one in 20 settles late.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The network has undergone a number of upgrades since its inception, including ISO 20022, which aims to provide clearer payment data and more transparency by Nov. 25, 2025. Still, critics claim it is ultimately outdated \u201clegacy\u201d tech running on decades-old XML technology.<\/p>\n

SWIFT may have the advantage of ubiquity and clear institutional adoption, but Ripple offers a clear advantage in technological terms, with faster transaction and settlement speeds, as well as lower costs.<\/p>\n

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In 2018, just a couple of years before Ripple\u2019s years-long legal battle with the SEC would begin, Garlinghouse told<\/a> Bloomberg, \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing and executing on a day-by-day basis is, in fact, taking over SWIFT\u201d as banks and remittance companies signed on to use XRP Ledger.<\/p>\n

So, with institutional partners signing on and the XRP price on a tear over the last year, what\u2019s stopping Ripple\u2019s ledger from challenging SWIFT?<\/p>\n

XRP\u2019s price increased 400% over the year. Source: CoinMarketCap<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, why hasn\u2019t Ripple overtaken SWIFT?<\/h2>\n

Cassie Craddock, managing director for UK and Europe at Ripple, told Cointelegraph, \u201cWe don\u2019t see blockchain as an opportunity to replace legacy rails, rather a way of augmenting and modernizing the existing financial infrastructure, creating opportunities for greater efficiency and interoperability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, \u201cscaling to the level of traditional providers requires tackling two key hurdles: usability and regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding regulation, Ripple was, until recently, part of a particularly high-profile court case.<\/p>\n

In December 2020, the SEC under Chairman Jay Clayton sued Ripple Labs for failing to register its XRP tokens as securities under US law. The commission alleged that the company and its executives raised capital through unregistered securities sales. What followed was an expensive, years-long court battle.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Judge Analisa Torres ruled that the programmatic sales of XRP did not require securities registration<\/a>, but that its XPR sales to institutional investors did. The court didn\u2019t issue its final $125-million civil penalty to Ripple until August 2024.<\/p>\n

Related: <\/strong><\/em>Ripple vs. SEC: How the lawsuit strengthened XRP\u2019s narrative<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

By October, Ripple and the SEC had filed respective appeals, but following the election of US President Donald Trump and the realignment of the SEC\u2019s priorities for crypto, both parties finally agreed to drop their case in early August 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The case may have hampered XRP adoption in the US, but during the case, it signed partnerships with institutions in numerous other jurisdictions around the globe. Furthermore, the case gives XRP specifically unique legal clarity<\/a> \u2014 something few cryptocurrencies can boast.<\/p>\n

However, legal clarity may not be enough for Ripple to overtake the world\u2019s largest payments network, as banks themselves must be convinced to change how they operate.<\/p>\n

Pseudonymous software engineer and blockchain proponent Vincent Van Code said<\/a> that platforms using SWIFT \u201cprocess billions daily, but they are rigid, costly, and deeply siloed. A core replacement can take 5\u20137 years and hundreds of millions of dollars\u2014an enormous operational risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

They said that banks don\u2019t change their systems because \u201cevery bank already \u2018speaks SWIFT,\u2019 making it the safest, cheapest option. Even initiatives like SWIFT GPI are just patches on a nearly 50-year-old foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Code concluded that Ripple has to contend with fragile legacy cores and \u201cuneven\u201d global regulation and assuage risk-averse banks \u2014 all while countering perceptions about its underlying token\u2019s liquidity. <\/p>\n

\u201cSWIFT\u2019s ubiquity is its moat, and breaking that network effect will take time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craddock said that \u201cinstitutions need tools that feel familiar,\u201d and that new regulations, particularly the GENIUS Act, are a \u201cstep toward clear rules that give institutions confidence to adopt blockchain in a compliant way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStablecoins like Ripple USD are helping bridge this gap \u2014 they\u2019re simple to understand, pegged 1:1 to the US dollar and behave like cash in digital form. That familiarity is why we\u2019re seeing traditional financial players increasingly comfortable using crypto and blockchain tech today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Private payments gain ground<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s unclear whether Ripple can take on SWIFT in the future, overcoming the entrenched business practices of the banking sector and less-than-enthusiastic regulators.<\/p>\n

However, crypto is ascendant in the US, where lawmakers are making carveouts for digital assets to fulfill critical roles in the traditional finance system. Congress has clearly expressed its preference for the proliferation of private stablecoins over a digital dollar or central bank digital currency (CBDC).<\/p>\n

Congress has not outright banned a CBDC, but it has created a law whereby only the legislature can create one<\/a>, excluding the Federal Reserve or commercial entities. At the same time, it passed the GENIUS Act, which gives clear rules for stablecoin issuers.<\/p>\n

In March, after the SEC dropped its investigation into Ripple, Garlinghouse told<\/a> Fox News that \u201cthe market opportunity is massive\u201d in the US and said that there\u2019s an opportunity to modernize the payment systems from SWIFT.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump effect is profound […] you\u2019re gonna see that in the adoption of these [blockchain] technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magazine: <\/strong><\/em>ChatGPT\u2019s links to murder, suicide and \u2018accidental jailbreaks\u2019: AI Eye<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n