Global finance may be heading toward a shift in cross-border settlements. Speaking at the XRP APEX 2025 event in Singapore, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse shared a bold projection: XRP could capture 14% of SWIFT’s volume over the next five years, driven by a focus on liquidity rather than messaging infrastructure.

Leveraging Crypto-Based Liquidity

Garlinghouse’s comments reflect a broader ambition within Ripple to challenge traditional financial rails by leveraging crypto-based liquidity solutions.

While SWIFT currently dominates the interbank messaging landscape for cross-border payments, Garlinghouse argued that the true battleground lies in liquidity, the ability to move money, not just send instructions.

“There are two parts to SWIFT today: messaging and liquidity,” Garlinghouse said. “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… so I’ll say five years, 14%.”

At the same event, Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer also highlighted the potential for rapid growth in the tokenized asset sector. “Hundreds of billions of tokenized global assets [will emerge] fairly quickly,” he said, signaling Ripple’s intent to position XRP as a foundational layer in that transformation.

You may also find interesting: Ripple’s Stablecoin Enables Ondo’s $670M Tokenized Treasury Access on XRPL

The vision presented at APEX 2025 hints at a future in which traditional financial infrastructure coexists, or competes, with blockchain-powered systems.

Cross-Border Finance

By targeting liquidity, Ripple aims to plug into the critical layer of cross-border finance that determines how quickly and cheaply value can move across borders. At the time of this publication, XRP traded for $2.31, after a 3% and 1% increase in the past week and day, respectively. Ranked #4 on CoinMarketCap, the token has a market capitalization of $136 billion.

While such projections are ambitious, they reflect growing momentum in the digital asset space, where major institutions are increasingly exploring blockchain-based alternatives to legacy financial systems.

Read more: Is XRP Moving Up Ahead of a Possible Ripple-SWIFT Integration?

In April, rumors about a collaboration between Ripple and SWIFT emerged. Garlinghouse reportedly suggested the possibility of either an integration or a replacement. A former SWIFT employee also claimed that banks have tested XRP’s compatibility with the SWIFT network.

This article was written by Jared Kirui at www.financemagnates.com.CryptoCurrencyRead More

You might also be interested in reading Another crypto firm hit with fines for violating U.S. sanctions.