Ripple to acquire Australian financial services license as APAC payments volume doubles

• Ripple plans to acquire BC Payments Australia to secure an Australian Financial Services License, enabling it to offer its full payments stack in the country through a single integration.
• The company says payments volume in the Asia-Pacific region nearly doubled year-over-year in 2025, contributing to a reported $100 billion in total processed volume across 60 markets.
• Ripple is also joining Project Acacia, a digital-asset infrastructure initiative led by Australia's central bank, as XRP trades around $1.38 with modest gains for the day and week.

Ripple announced plans on Wednesday to secure an Australian Financial Services License through the proposed acquisition of BC Payments Australia Pty Ltd, per a release shared with CoinDesk.

The acquisition, which is still subject to completion, would allow Ripple to offer its full payments stack in Australia, covering onboarding, compliance, funding, foreign exchange, liquidity management, and payout through a single integration.

Australian customers currently using Ripple Payments include Hai Ha Money Transfer, Stables, Caleb & Brown, Flash Payments, and Independent Reserve.

"Australia is a key market for Ripple, and an AFSL strengthens our ability to scale Ripple Payments across the region," said Fiona Murray, managing director for Asia Pacific, in a statement.

The regional numbers back up the push. Ripple said its APAC payments volume nearly doubled year-on-year in 2025, though it didn't disclose specific figures.

That growth sits alongside the $100 billion in total processed volume the company reported last week when it announced managed custody, virtual account collections, and stablecoin settlement capabilities across 60 markets.

Ripple also said it is participating in Project Acacia, an initiative led by the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre focused on digital asset infrastructure.

The licensing approach is notable. Rather than applying for an AFSL directly, Ripple is acquiring a company that already holds one. That's a faster path to market but means the license is contingent on the deal closing, which hasn't happened yet.

XRP was trading at $1.38, up 0.3% on the day and 1.7% on the week.

• Disrupting a Stagnant Market: Pudgy Penguins is utilizing a "Negative CAC" model to challenge the traditional $31.7B licensed toy industry by treating physical merchandise as a profitable user acquisition tool rather than just a final product.

• The x402 protocol aims to enable "agentic payments" by embedding stablecoin micropayments directly into the internet’s communication layer so AI agents and software can pay each other automatically.
• Despite a roughly $7 billion ecosystem valuation, onchain data shows that x402 currently processes only about $28,000 in daily volume, much of it from testing and "gamed" transactions rather than real commerce.
• Supporters argue that x402’s true utility will emerge as more AI-driven, pay-per-use services come online, but for now the narrative around agentic commerce is running ahead of actual adoption.

Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.