Ripple Ends Legal Battle with SEC: Is It Ready to Take on SWIFT?

After a years-long legal battle between the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs, the Commission finally dropped the case against Ripple.

The two sides agreed to dismiss their appeals against the penalty imposed by a Manhattan court judge, Analisa Torres, who ruled that Ripple must pay $125 million to the SEC.

Now that the lawsuit is over, Ripple can go back to its original goal – to challenge SWIFT’s dominance in cross-border banking.

Could Ripple Become an Alternative to SWIFT?

For over five decades, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) has dominated international banking. The SWIFT network facilitates cross-border money transfers, but in recent years, many have started criticizing the system, calling it outdated.

Critics argue that cutting-edge blockchain technologies, particularly Ripple and its XRP Ledger, can provide faster, cheaper, and completely transparent transactions. These qualities are in stark contrast to what SWIFT represents today.

How SWIFT Works?

SWIFT was established in Brussels in 1973 as an answer to Telex. In this public network, messages had to be manually written and read, which was slow and prone to many mistakes. SWIFT was a suitable replacement that quickly became the standard for global money transfers.

Although many think that SWIFT sends money, the system is actually a secure messaging platform that enables banks to send payment requests to each other. It means that when you make an international bank transfer, a bank sends payment instructions through the SWIFT network from your account to the recipient’s account. This request can be processed directly or go through several intermediary banks that are part of the system. Correspondent banks and clearing systems handle the final settlement.

SWIFT ensures that this communication is standardized and secure, which makes the network reliable and trusted by more than 11,500 institutions. The SWIFT network handles over 53 million payment orders daily across 40,000 routes in 220 countries worldwide.

These numbers are impressive, but the critics point out that such a system slows down the operations, resulting in slow transactions that can take several days. Moreover, since multiple banks can be involved, processing fees can be pretty high, and the complex network of partner banks makes payments less transparent.

Even though the network had several updates and improvements, it’s still considered an outdated “legacy” technology.

Ripple vs SWIFT: Main Differences

The primary advantage of SWIFT is its widespread adoption. On the other hand, Ripple has a technological edge powered by blockchain that facilitates faster, low-cost transactions.

The XRP Ledger handles a smaller volume of daily transactions, 1-3 million. However, the settlement speed is significantly faster, processing transactions in just 3-5 seconds, compared to SWIFT’s 1 hour to 5 business days. Also, SWIFT has working hours, while XLP Ledger operates 24/7.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in 2018 that the company is actually focused on taking over SWIFT. He also confirmed that many banks and remittance companies agreed to start using the XRP Ledger.

What’s Stopping Ripple From Overthrowing SWIFT?

Cassie Craddock, Managing Director for the UK and Europe at Ripple, stated that the company doesn’t consider blockchain as a means to replace legacy financial infrastructure, but rather as a way to modernize it and make it more efficient. She added that reaching the scale of traditional providers still requires overcoming two major challenges: usability and regulation.

And here we come to the main issue – regulatory compliance.

In December 2020, the SEC sued Ripple for not registering XRP tokens as securities under US law, which enabled the company to raise capital by selling unregistered securities.

In 2023, a Manhattan court judge, Analisa Torres, ruled partially in favor of the company, saying that the programmatic sales of XRP did not require securities registration. However, the judge also ordered Ripple to pay $125 million to the SEC for selling unregistered XRP tokens to institutional investors. The case was finally dropped in August 2025, but the penalty stays.

Although this lawsuit slowed down XRP adoption in the US, the company continued to forge partnerships with institutions across multiple international markets. Moreover, the case gave Ripple and its XRP token a much-needed legal clarity, which is a rare privilege among cryptocurrencies.

Still, the legal clarity alone may not be enough for Ripple to become the next global banking behemoth.

Cassie Craddock has also said that institutions want to rely on familiar systems and that the new GENIUS Act is a “step toward clear rules that give institutions confidence to adopt blockchain in a compliant way.”

“Stablecoins like Ripple USD are helping bridge this gap — they’re simple to understand, pegged 1:1 to the US dollar and behave like cash in digital form. That familiarity is why we’re seeing traditional financial players increasingly comfortable using crypto and blockchain tech today.”