Circle wants its USDC payments network to be the Ripple killer

Circle recently announced its Circle Payments Network, which leverages USDC for cross-border payments. If that pitch sounds a lot like Ripple’s XRP-based payments network, RippleNet, that’s because it’s meant to.

The giant crypto incumbents are direct competitors for the world’s most valuable settlement rails: sending USD value between banks using cryptography.

Circle has its $61 billion USDC, and Ripple has its much smaller, albeit equally compliant, RLUSD. Both companies also have partnerships with banks and payment providers, with Circle boasting over 500 alliances and Ripple claiming to work with thousands.

Crypto exchanges report about $55 million worth of RLUSD volume over the last 24 hours. That is 99.4% less than Circle’s $9.8 billion for its much larger USDC.

Tearing a page right out of Ripple’s XRP marketing playbook, Circle bemoaned cross-border payments taking “longer than one business day to settle and costing more than 6%.”

Just like Ripple, Circle says crypto can reduce disproportionate impact on emerging markets, make cross-border payments more seamless, and slash “mainstream” remittance fees.

Taking its lead from Ripple’s use of RLUSD on its XRP Ledger (XRPL), Circle’s Payments Network will use regulated stablecoins like USDC and EURC on world-class blockchains like Ethereum.

It also advertises a level of customization that XRP-based payments don’t have, like better APIs and technical infrastructure.

Also like Ripple, Circle promises robust regulatory compliance and has onboarded major banks including Santander, Deutsche Bank, Société Générale, and Standard Chartered.

Both companies boast about the number, quantity, and depth of their partnerships, as well as their payment licensures in jurisdictions across the globe.

Ripple has also secured clarity from the world’s most powerful securities regulator in its multi-year victory over the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). For its part, Circle is proud to have avoided any SEC lawsuit entirely.

Read more: Ripple dumps XRP to pump RLUSD — still 0.2% the size of USDT

$913 billion in global remittances

Both companies cite the World Bank’s estimate on the global remittance market at approximately $913 billion in 2024. USDC, EURC, XRP, or RLUSD — depending on who you ask — could lower fees and improve efficiencies by adding crypto rails and efficiencies.

Circle bills Circle Payments Network as suitable for the “always-on economy,” in which customers and clients prefer not to see their activities limited by bankers’ hours and time zones.

Ripple also boasts about its XRP Ledger’s round-the-clock uptime for over a decade.

Ripple Payments has been working with banks and financial institutions for years, including cross-border remittances, treasury operations, and liquidity provisioning.

Circle, although younger than Ripple by a few years, claims to be able to do just as good a job.

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