A social media post by a crypto researcher has drawn fresh attention to a suggested avenue for $XRP settlement within the ecosystem around FedNow, the Federal Reserve's instant payment system — one that runs through a technology vendor most bank customers have never heard of.

The researcher, known online as SMQKE, connected the dots through Volante Technologies, a firm that already links financial institutions to FedNow and has stated that $XRP settlement could run through its existing Ripple connection.

An old partnership, not a new announcement

The core of the story is not a fresh disclosure but a long-standing partnership that researchers suggest could now be relevant. Volante is one of the technology providers that banks and credit unions use to plug into FedNow, and it is also the company that built one of the earliest enterprise-grade Ripple connections in the payments industry.

Volante's relationship with Ripple is not a recent pivot toward crypto trends. The company activated Ripple integration capability inside its VolPay Hub in October 2015, well before real-time payments became a mainstream banking priority. A year later, in 2016, Volante went further, adding a dedicated Ripple solution within its VolPay Foundation development platform and partnering with Ripple to build software designed to speed up connections to Ripple's real-time cross-border payment system.

That integration has remained active ever since, with banks and other Ripple customers already deploying it in production environments.

What Volante has said about $XRP settlement

What makes the connection relevant today is a stated capability: Volante has said that $XRP settlement could be available through its Ripple connection. In other words, the infrastructure that could potentially support $XRP settlement in a FedNow-adjacent environment may already exist rather than being purely theoretical. Any institution using Volante as its connectivity layer could potentially be positioned to access an $XRP settlement rail without building anything new.

Third-party connectivity is the market's default route

Most banks would rather outsource FedNow connectivity than build it themselves, and that preference is precisely what makes Volante's dual role with FedNow and Ripple potentially significant. When a large share of the market chooses a middleman for network access, whoever operates that middle layer can influence which settlement options become available.

The 2023 Faster Payments Barometer asked organizations how they intended to connect to FedNow and the RTP network. The results leaned heavily toward outsourcing: 47% of respondents said they preferred connecting through a third-party service provider, compared with just 32% who planned to build direct connections to each network on their own. For nearly half the market, a vendor like Volante is not a convenience — it is the default route into real-time payments infrastructure.

Deepak Gupta, SVP and Global Head of Payments-as-a-Service at Volante, addressed those findings directly, saying the "#1 preferred approach to connectivity, according to the Barometer, is via a service provider that can quickly connect institutions to multiple networks." The statement aligns with Volante's own positioning, as the company already serves as exactly that kind of multi-network provider for a meaningful share of the organizations surveyed.

One platform spanning FedNow, RTP and Ripple

The pieces researchers have connected were already in place before anyone framed the story around $XRP — and that is the detail SMQKE's post highlighted: a potential connection based on existing infrastructure.

Volante does not just plug institutions into FedNow. It also connects them to The Clearing House's RTP network, giving banks a single vendor relationship that spans two of the major real-time payment rails operating in the United States. That dual connectivity matches the model most Barometer respondents said they prefer, and it is the same infrastructure that carries Volante's Ripple integration.

Because that Ripple connection sits on the same platform as Volante's FedNow and RTP connectivity, institutions that chose the third-party route — the 47% identified in the Barometer — could potentially have access to $XRP settlement without any additional build-out. This is the element researchers have emphasized: a potential link between FedNow and $XRP through Volante's infrastructure, grounded in connections that already exist.

Interoperability, meanwhile, continues to rank among the industry's top concerns, and the numbers back that up. The same 2023 Barometer found that 92% of respondents consider interoperability across compatible payment systems important. Volante's multi-network structure — spanning FedNow, RTP and its Ripple integration — addresses that priority by giving institutions one platform instead of several disconnected ones. Extending that structure to include $XRP as a settlement option would fit a system that was already designed to connect multiple rails.

FAQ

How could $XRP be integrated into the FedNow payment system?

$XRP could potentially be integrated into FedNow through Volante Technologies, which provides a technology platform that enables $XRP settlement via its Ripple connection.

What percentage of organizations prefer using third-party providers to connect to FedNow?

According to the 2023 Faster Payments Barometer, 47% of organizations prefer connecting to FedNow via a third-party service provider.

What role does Volante Technologies play in real-time payment networks?

Volante connects institutions to both FedNow and The Clearing House's RTP network, facilitating multi-network real-time payments and potentially $XRP settlement.

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Original article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team. Source: CryptoNewsNet; originally published by The Cryptonomist.