Arf Puts RLUSD to Work as Short-Term Payment Credit

Ripple and Arf said on October 22 they will provide RLUSD settlement liquidity to licensed cross-border payment companies on the XRP Ledger. Arf, a Zug working-capital firm, will lend Ripple’s dollar stablecoin so those companies can pay out while they wait for their own funds.

The loans are meant to be repaid in one to five days and sent out again. Arf did not name an RLUSD amount for the program, or the first borrowers.

Arf Opens a Short-Term RLUSD Credit Line on XRPL

Arf’s own note on RLUSD-powered settlement liquidity calls this the first phase. Direct RLUSD credit on the XRP Ledger comes now. Pooled vaults and a native lending protocol come later, and only if the network turns those features on.

Ali Erhat Nalbant, Arf’s co-founder and CEO, said payment companies need capital while they wait for funds to settle. Jasmine Cooper, head of product for RippleX at Ripple, said settlement liquidity is the kind of use case the ledger and RLUSD are built to support, because firms want fast capital across borders without parking large balances.

Arf is a Swiss-regulated firm and a member of VQF, a self-regulatory body, under number 101012. It launched this product in November 2022. Payment companies do not have to run their own ledger operations; Arf said it can keep fiat and stablecoin treasuries in bank accounts while the chain runs in the background.

Arf is bringing settlement liquidity to the @XRP Ledger.

Cross-border payments move trillions of dollars every year, but the capital needed to move that money often remains tied up across markets.

That’s why we’re partnering with @Ripple to bring RLUSD-powered settlement… pic.twitter.com/M9RQqdITse

— Arf (@arf_one) October 22, 2026

Vet, a dUNL validator who posts as Vet_X0, called the design on-chain credit for cross-border payments and told readers to watch the vault and lending amendments, XLS-65 and XLS-66. That is the second phase, not the product that can start with a simple RLUSD transfer.

How the One-to-Five-Day Loan Is Repaid

The mechanics are closer to a revolving trade facility than to a token listing. A licensed remittance, card, or transfer firm still has to pay a recipient before the sender’s money finishes its path. Arf’s job is to fill that window in RLUSD, then collect once the firm’s own funds land.

THE CREDIT LOOP

• The order: A licensed payment company takes a cross-border payment and asks Arf for liquidity on an agreed corridor.
• The advance: Arf sends RLUSD on the XRP Ledger toward the payout partner so local disbursement can start.
• The payout: The partner uses that dollar stablecoin, or converts it, and pays the recipient from local cash.
• The repayment: The payment company repays Arf in one to five days, after its own settlement arrives.
• The reuse: The same capital goes out again, which is how Arf says the book turns over four times a month.

That loop already exists inside Arf’s wider business. The October 22 deal changes the unit of account on this rail to RLUSD and the venue to the XRP Ledger. Credit checks, borrower limits, and working-capital decisions stay with Arf off the ledger, in both phases.

The Prefunding Trap Payment Firms Already Pay For

Cross-border firms have long parked cash in destination markets so they can pay out the same day. That stock of idle balances is the float the industry calls prefunding. Bank lines can take months to open and often want collateral that sits in one place, which is a poor match for capital that has to show up in many corridors at once.

A Circle case study on Arf’s earlier USDC product cites an estimated $4 trillion tied up in prefunded accounts worldwide. On that rail, Arf underwrote the payment firm, sent USDC to the payout partner, and collected in one to five days. The Ripple deal is the same credit idea with a different dollar token and a different chain.

Payment companies need capital to keep money moving while they wait for funds to settle. We’re meeting that need at scale, with $10 billion in annual settlement volume and capital turning over four times a month. Through this partnership with Ripple, we’re bringing stablecoin working capital to the XRP Ledger to help payment companies bridge that gap and support more payment volume.

Ali Erhat Nalbant, Co-founder and CEO, Arf

Licensed payment companies are the borrowers. They are also the party with money already trapped in nostro-style accounts. If RLUSD credit replaces even part of that float, the ledger becomes a place where short-term payment debt turns over, not only a place where tokens change hands.

Why the $10 Billion Is Not an XRPL Pool

Arf’s headline number is easy to misread. The firm says it has scaled to about $10 billion a year in global settlement volume, with capital turning over 4x a month. That describes the whole book it already runs. It is not a figure for RLUSD sitting on the XRP Ledger, and it is not a committed facility.

A public dashboard of Arf loan volume, which Arf links from the announcement, tracked a 0.00% default rate over 1,438 days. That record belongs to the existing product. The partnership note does not say how much of that flow will move into RLUSD, or when.

WHAT THE OCTOBER 22 NOTE DISCLOSED

Arf and Huma Finance coined the PayFi label for credit and treasury built around live payment flows, with Arf as the regulated lender. Circle’s case study also notes that Arf later merged with Huma. The useful point for this deal is simpler: the credit engine is old. The RLUSD wrapper is new.

Validators Have Not Switched the Loans On

Phase two needs two ledger features that are still in the amendment queue. Single Asset Vaults would pool one asset, including a dollar token such as RLUSD, and issue shares to depositors. The Lending Protocol would then make fixed-term, uncollateralized loans from those vaults, with a loan broker setting terms and optional first-loss capital.

XRPL’s own docs say credit checks stay off-chain. Issuers can claw back funds from a vault and freeze accounts, which is the compliance hook a regulated stablecoin needs. Arf said it has already built against that design and will keep underwriting off-chain even after loans are recorded on-chain.

A late October snapshot on the XRP Ledger live amendment board showed the lending stack still below the 80% validator bar, which was 28 of 35 trusted validators on that board. Support also has to hold for two straight weeks before an amendment activates.

LATE OCTOBER AMENDMENT BOARD

The cleanup package, which patches lending and vault code that is not live yet, was listed with an October 23 activation target and had not enabled in that snapshot. Lending itself had not started a two-week countdown. Even a sudden jump to 28 votes would still leave a wait before anyone can open a native vault loan.

RLUSD Takes the Credit and XRP Covers Fees

The working capital in this program is RLUSD. XRP pays network fees and the reserve balances that ledger objects require. That split is the product, and it is why a rally in XRP does not follow automatically from a working-capital desk using the chain.

DefiLlama put RLUSD at a $2.356 billion market cap on October 23, with $939.82 million of that supply on the XRP Ledger and $1.458 billion on Ethereum. Those chain totals are separate prints, not a sum of the market-cap line. A larger RLUSD float on XRPL would matter for this desk only if Arf actually draws and repays it there.

RLUSD AND XRP IN THIS PROGRAM

• Loan asset: RLUSD is disbursed and repaid as the working capital.
• Native token: XRP is used for fees and reserve requirements on accounts and ledger objects.
• Turnover: One-to-five-day tenors, if used, would create repeated ledger activity from the same cash.
• Missing print: No RLUSD facility size, no borrower count, and no corridor list have been published.

Arf said that at scale the program would give the ledger revolving lending tied to real payment flows. That claim is a forecast about utilization. The only volume figure in the announcement remains Arf’s existing $10 billion annual book.

Arf Built a Lending Stack the Ledger Has Not Enabled

Once XLS-65 and XLS-66 activate, Arf said the capital behind this liquidity can be managed on-chain and deployed through native lending, while it still decides who qualifies. In protocol language, Arf would act as the loan broker. Depositors could fund a vault; borrowers would be the same class of licensed payment firms.

Until those amendments lock in, phase one is ordinary stablecoin credit that happens to move on XRPL. Arf can send RLUSD, record a repayment, and roll the funds without a vault share or an on-chain loan object. That is why the partnership can be real and the native credit market can still be dark.

The next facts that would move this story are dull on purpose: an RLUSD amount actually advanced, names of licensed firms drawing the line, one-to-five-day repayment performance on this rail, and a two-week supermajority for SingleAssetVault and LendingProtocol. Until those prints exist, Arf has brought a working-capital desk to RLUSD, and the XRP Ledger has not yet turned on the loans that desk wants to live inside.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a corporate partnership and a proposed ledger feature, and it is for information only. It is not investment, trading, legal, or credit advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold XRP, RLUSD, or any other token, or to use Arf’s facilities. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser and, where lending or payments activity is involved, qualified legal counsel before acting. Figures, amendment vote counts, and product statuses reflect the cited company notes, dashboards, and tracker snapshots as of their stated dates and can change.