Ripple is acquiring BC Payments Australia Pty Ltd to secure an Australian Financial Services Licence, giving its payments stack full regulatory coverage in a market where APAC volume doubled last year, while XRP trades at $1.37, roughly 60% below its July 2025 all-time high.
TLDR KEY POINTS
- Ripple is acquiring BC Payments Australia (a Banking Circle subsidiary) to obtain an AFSL before Australia’s June 30, 2026 licensing deadline, expanding its regulated footprint to over 75 licenses globally.
- The AFSL unlocks full-stack settlement capability in Australia, covering onboarding, compliance, FX, liquidity management and payouts, with RLUSD integration powering cross-border corridors.
- XRP trades at $1.37 with support at $1.30 and resistance near $1.44, consolidating in a narrow band despite Ripple’s institutional momentum and $100 billion in processed volume.
The proposed acquisition, announced March 11 from Sydney, targets BC Payments Australia Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of European payment infrastructure provider Banking Circle. Rather than applying for an AFSL directly, Ripple is acquiring a company that already holds one, a faster path to market in a jurisdiction where new crypto regulations carry a hard deadline.
The deal is expected to close in April 2026. Financial terms were not disclosed. This marks Ripple’s second Australian acquisition this year, following its purchase of Solvexia in January.
What the AFSL Enables for Ripple’s Payment Stack
The licence permits Ripple to manage the complete transaction lifecycle in Australia: onboarding, compliance, funding, foreign exchange conversion, liquidity management, settlement oversight and final payouts. That is a single-integration offering that connects traditional banking rails with digital asset settlement.
Fiona Murray, Ripple’s Managing Director for Asia Pacific, framed the move in regulatory terms.
“Licensing is fundamental to Ripple’s strategy, ensuring we can deliver secure, compliant solutions to customers worldwide.”
Ripple already serves six Australian customers through its payments platform: Hai Ha Money Transfer, Novatti Group, Stables, Caleb & Brown, Flash Payments and Independent Reserve. The AFSL gives Ripple direct settlement oversight rather than relying on intermediary licence holders for compliance coverage.
The company is also joining Project Acacia, a digital asset infrastructure initiative led by the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre. That participation signals Ripple’s intent to embed its settlement infrastructure within Australia’s central bank-adjacent frameworks.
$2.5 Billion in Acquisitions Built the Institutional Stack
The BC Payments deal is one piece of an aggressive acquisition strategy. Ripple spent over $2.5 billion on acquisitions in 2025, building out its institutional infrastructure across prime brokerage, custody, treasury management and stablecoin rails.
The largest was Hidden Road, a multi-asset prime broker acquired for $1.25 billion in April 2025. Hidden Road clears more than $3 trillion annually across markets, serving over 300 institutional customers including hedge funds. That deal made Ripple the first crypto company to own a global prime brokerage.
Other 2025 acquisitions included Rail (stablecoin infrastructure), GTreasury (treasury management) and Palisade (crypto custody). Combined, these form what Ripple now brands as “Ripple Prime,” an institutional-grade platform that processed over $100 billion in total volume across 60+ markets.
CEO Brad Garlinghouse signalled a shift at a November 2025 industry event: “We’ll probably slow down the acquisition binge in 2026, which makes our corporate developer team very happy.” The BC Payments deal suggests that slowdown is relative, not absolute.
Australia’s June 2026 Deadline Creates Regulatory Urgency
The timing is not coincidental. Australia’s Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 established that crypto platforms holding over A$5 million in digital assets, or more than A$1,500 for any single client, must obtain an AFSL.
ASIC issued a no-action letter allowing temporary operation without an AFSL, but that grace period expires June 30, 2026. Platforms must have lodged an AFSL application by that date. The AUSTRAC registration scope also changes on March 31, 2026.
Murray noted that the AFSL could help mitigate crypto debanking issues in Australia, where major financial institutions have imposed restrictions on customer transfers to cryptocurrency platforms. A regulated licence holder faces fewer barriers to banking relationships than an unlicensed operator.
Ripple now holds over 75 regulatory licences worldwide, including approvals in the US, EU and UK. The Australian AFSL fills a gap in its APAC coverage at precisely the moment when the regulatory window is closing for unlicensed operators.
RLUSD and the Cross-Border Liquidity Angle
What competitors miss in covering this deal is the stablecoin infrastructure layer. Ripple USD (RLUSD) reached $1 billion in market capitalisation in under a year since launch.
The upgraded Ripple Payments platform, unveiled March 3, 2026, consolidates fiat and stablecoin transactions into a single end-to-end system. It runs on 51 real-time payment rails. The AFSL means Ripple can now route Australian dollar corridors through RLUSD settlement without requiring a third-party licence holder in the loop.
For DeFi participants watching cross-border stablecoin flows, this matters. A regulated entity with its own stablecoin, its own prime brokerage and its own custody infrastructure operating under a central bank-adjacent licence is a different competitive proposition than an offshore payment provider relying on partner banks. It is closer to how Circle operates with USDC in regulated markets, but vertically integrated with settlement rails.
Ripple confirmed the Ripple tweet announcing the AFSL milestone:
Exciting milestone for @Ripple in Australia! 🇦🇺
Ripple is obtaining an Australian Financial Services License (AFSL). As we continue to bridge TradFi with the next gen of digital infrastructure, regulatory compliance remains the foundation of everything we build:… pic.twitter.com/JNF1iQSyG7
— Ripple (@Ripple) March 10, 2026
Source: @Ripple on X
XRP Consolidates at $1.37 Despite Institutional Momentum
XRP traded at $1.37 at press time, down 0.5% over 24 hours and 3.2% over seven days. The token sits roughly 62% below its all-time high of $3.65, set on July 18, 2025.
Market capitalisation stands at $83.9 billion with 61.2 billion XRP in circulation, ranking it fifth by market cap. The 24-hour trading volume was $2.34 billion.
Technical analysis frames XRP in a tight consolidation band. Immediate support sits at the $1.30 to $1.32 zone, with deeper support at $1.27. Resistance clusters near $1.40 to $1.44, with a breakout above $1.48 needed to shift momentum toward $1.60.
On-chain data suggests limited resistance until the $1.76 to $1.80 range, where approximately 1.85 billion XRP were accumulated at a cost basis near $2.83 billion. Holders at that level may sell to break even, creating a supply wall.
The broader market is not helping. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index reads 18, deep in “Extreme Fear” territory. XRP’s institutional narrative, strengthened by the SEC settlement in May 2025 (reduced from $2 billion to $125 million), has not translated into sustained price recovery.
One historical note: March has delivered an average 18% return for XRP over the past 12 years, making it statistically the strongest month in Q1. Whether that seasonal pattern holds amid current macro conditions is an open question.
What to Watch Next
The BC Payments deal is expected to close in April 2026. Until completion, the AFSL remains contingent on the transaction finalising. AUSTRAC’s updated registration scope takes effect March 31, 2026, adding another near-term regulatory milestone.
Ripple’s APAC payments volume doubled year-on-year in 2025. If that growth trajectory holds, Australia becomes a key corridor for RLUSD-powered cross-border settlement, particularly for stablecoin rails connecting AUD to Southeast Asian currencies.
For XRP, the price disconnect between institutional infrastructure expansion and token valuation remains the central tension. The $1.30 support level is the line to watch. A break below it opens the path toward $1.07; a hold and recovery above $1.44 shifts the technical picture bullish.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment or trading advice. Always conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk, and you should never invest more than you can afford to lose.
