RippleNet

Ripple's network of financial institutions for faster cross-border payment messaging and settlement.

RippleNet is the name Ripple has used for its network of banks, payment providers, and other financial institutions connected via Ripple's software to send cross-border payments to one another faster and with more transparency than traditional correspondent banking.

The problem it addresses

Traditional cross-border payments often route through a chain of correspondent banks, each taking a cut and adding delay, with limited visibility into a payment's status until it arrives (or fails) at the destination. This can mean payments that take days, with fees and final amounts that are hard to predict in advance.

How RippleNet approaches it

RippleNet provides participating institutions with:

• Standardized messaging between institutions for initiating and tracking payments, with more transaction-level detail and status visibility than legacy systems typically provide.
• Pre-validation of payment details before a transaction is sent, reducing the failed or returned payments that plague correspondent banking.
• Optional use of On-Demand Liquidity (ODL), Ripple's XRP-based bridge-currency mechanism, for institutions that want to avoid pre-funding destination-currency accounts. See On-Demand Liquidity — using ODL is optional, not a requirement of joining RippleNet.

RippleNet does not require using XRP

An important, often-missed point: an institution can join RippleNet and use Ripple's messaging and settlement software without ever touching XRP, by continuing to settle through traditional pre-funded accounts instead of ODL. XRP-based settlement is one option within the network, not a mandatory component — which has historically been part of Ripple's argument (including in the SEC litigation) that RippleNet's business value is not simply "a wrapper for selling XRP."

Evolution of the branding

Ripple has periodically reorganized and rebranded its specific product names over the years (for example, around payments, custody, and liquidity offerings), so "RippleNet" is sometimes used loosely to refer to the overall network and partner ecosystem rather than one single, fixed product SKU. See Key Partnerships for examples of institutions that have connected to this network.