Ripple has announced a planned acquisition of BC Payments Australia in a deal intended to transfer an Australian Financial Services License, or AFSL, to its Ripple Payments business. The transaction is aimed at speeding up regulated market entry in Australia and expanding Ripple’s payments footprint across APAC under an established licensing framework.
The timing supports the commercial rationale for the move. Ripple said its APAC payments volume nearly doubled year over year in 2025, signaling growing regional demand as the company pushes to deepen its presence in cross-border payments.
Why Ripple is pursuing the AFSL route
Rather than starting a fresh AFSL application from scratch, Ripple is presenting the acquisition path as a faster and more practical way to begin regulated operations in Australia. The company’s strategy is to shorten the lead time for market entry by acquiring an existing licensed entity instead of waiting through a full new approval process.
If the license transfer is completed, Ripple Payments would be positioned to manage the full payments cycle through a single integration. That structure would allow Ripple to handle onboarding and compliance, funding, foreign exchange and liquidity management, and final payouts across both traditional rails and digital-asset corridors.
Ripple has also framed the transaction as a reputational and operational step. A licensed conduit in Australia could reduce some of the counterparty friction that has historically affected crypto-related firms operating in the country, giving Ripple a more stable regulatory base for regional expansion. Fiona Murray, Ripple’s managing director for Asia Pacific, said Australia is a key market for the company and that an AFSL would strengthen its ability to scale Ripple Payments across the region.
What the acquisition could mean for the market
The deal also fits within several metrics Ripple has highlighted about its business. The company said APAC payments volume almost doubled in 2025, that it has processed about $100 billion globally, and that its regulatory footprint now exceeds 75 licenses worldwide. Those figures are being used to support the case that the Australian license would plug into an already expanding global payments network.
Ripple is pitching the combination of tokenized and traditional rails as a way to address long-standing payment inefficiencies. The company-linked commentary pointed to industry reporting showing that 41% of small and medium-sized businesses face payment delays of more than 14 days, reinforcing the argument for faster and more integrated settlement infrastructure.
The acquisition is expected to close around April 1, 2026, but the outcome remains conditional. The AFSL transfer will depend on the successful completion of the transaction and on continued compliance with Australian regulatory requirements, which means supervisory conditions could still affect the scope or timing of the license.
If Ripple can integrate settlement, liquidity, and FX services under the AFSL, the deal could create a faster and more predictable cross-border payments channel while also reducing some bank-related de-risking pressure on counterparties. At the same time, market participants will be watching the April 1 target date and any regulatory conditions that emerge during the closing process.
