Arf Announces Partnership to Provide RLUSD Settlement Liquidity for XRPL Payment Firms
Key Facts
Arf and Ripple have announced a partnership to provide RLUSD-backed settlement liquidity for licensed cross-border payment firms on the XRP Ledger, according to an Arf announcement. In the first phase, Arf will provide liquidity directly in RLUSD on the network to fund payments while they await settlement. The company says its annual global settlement volume is close to 10 billion dollars. Ali Erhat Nalbant, Arf’s co-founder and CEO, said stablecoin working capital would help payment firms “bridge the liquidity gap while funds await settlement.” The partnership puts short-term financing at the center of the stablecoin’s use, without meaning that native lending on the network has already begun.
According to Arf, short-term settlement liquidity is typically repaid within one to five days, in line with the settlement of cross-border payments. The company describes this financing as working capital that payment firms need while funds are in transit and have not yet reached their destination. Jasmine Cooper, head of product at RippleX, said “settlement liquidity is exactly the kind of use case that XRPL and RLUSD were designed to support.” The description reflects the partnership’s focus on financing the timing gap between payment execution and settlement completion. The announcement did not specify any cost reduction or speed improvement, but explained the need for capital while funds await settlement.
Arf says bank credit lines can take months to establish and typically require substantial collateral, which it considers unsuitable for global payment firms. By contrast, the company describes its model as providing short-term financing tied to the settlement period for payments, typically one to five days. The announcement did not disclose pricing terms or facility sizes available to each firm, nor did it specify how many firms would use the service at launch. Arf says payment firms do not need to run their operations directly on-chain to use the service. According to the announcement, this allows the company to provide liquidity to licensed firms without requiring them to operate on the network themselves.
Arf says it has operated in this field since its launch in November 2022, and that its capital turns 4 times monthly, alongside annual settlement volume of close to 10 billion dollars. These figures provide context for the activity the company aims to connect with RLUSD liquidity on XRPL. Arf also describes itself as a regulated financial institution in Switzerland and a member of VQF, headquartered in Zug. Its announcement says it has contributed to the development of payment financing, a field it calls PayFi. The current partnership aims to direct working capital financing to licensed cross-border payment firms on the network.
Arf plans to move more settlement liquidity activity to the native lending protocol on XRPL when it becomes available, while keeping underwriting and working capital management off-chain. The proposed XLS-66 standard describes the protocol as offering fixed-term, unsecured loans funded by pooled money and governed by preset terms, while creditworthiness assessments and risk management take place off-chain. But XLS-66 remains a draft, as does XLS-65, so the planned move depends on the proposed infrastructure becoming available. This status underscores the difference between the direct liquidity with which the partnership begins and lending activity on the native protocol at a later stage. The announcement did not specify when the protocol would become available or set a timeline for moving the activity.
Ripple says RLUSD is backed by U.S. dollars and cash equivalents, with its reserves held in segregated accounts. According to the company’s transparency page, circulating supply stood at 2.4058 billion dollars, while reserve funds totaled 2.5345 billion dollars on October 15, 2026. Ripple says reserve reports are issued monthly by an independent accounting firm to verify the circulating supply and the assets backing the currency. These figures provide context for the size of the currency used in the partnership, while Arf’s announcement focuses on its use in settlement financing. The announcement did not include details on the market’s response or the partnership’s effect on the price of RLUSD or XRP.