Rail

Rail is a regulated, enterprise-grade payment infrastructure platform that unifies fiat and stablecoin transfers behind a single API. Founded in Toronto in 2021 as Layer2 Financial by CEO Bhanu Kohli and CTO Tarun Mistry, the company rebranded to Rail in October 2024 to better reflect its focus on instant cross-border money movement. In August 2025, Ripple announced its acquisition of Rail for $200 million USD, a deal that closed in Q4 2025, integrating Rail's capabilities into Ripple's global payments network.

What Rail Does

Rather than forcing businesses to choose between legacy fiat corridors and crypto-native rails, Rail operates at the intersection of both. Its API abstracts the complexity of connecting to banks, licensed exchanges, qualified custodians, stablecoin issuers, and blockchain networks simultaneously. A corporate customer initiates a payment from a single interface and delivers funds to a recipient anywhere in the world — settled in fiat, stablecoins, or a mix — without the receiving party needing a crypto wallet or a blockchain account.

Rail positions its clearing model against SWIFT. Where SWIFT typically settles cross-border corporate payments over two to five business days with correspondent banking fees at each hop, Rail routes transactions using stablecoins as the settlement layer. Documented cases include $2.5 million transactions settling within hours; the platform targets T+0 same-day finality as the standard.

How the API Works

The unified API consolidates what would otherwise require separate integrations with crypto custodians, fiat processors, foreign exchange providers, and compliance vendors into a single object model. Each payment is represented as one object with a unified lifecycle, status, and event history, regardless of whether it routes through ACH, SWIFT, Fedwire, SEPA, or a blockchain rail. This design reduces back-office overhead and eliminates the fragmented transaction state that typically results from multi-vendor payment stacks.

Compliance is embedded rather than bolted on. Rail manages customer onboarding, counterparty screening, transaction monitoring, AML, fraud detection, and RFI handling through the same API surface. Businesses can offer regulated payment products without independently acquiring money transmitter licenses or maintaining direct banking relationships in each jurisdiction. Rail uses qualified custodians including BitGo for digital asset settlement, maintaining a regulated custody layer rather than operating self-custodially.

Virtual accounts are a core feature. Customers do not need to open dedicated wallets on centralized exchanges; Rail provisions virtual accounts that can hold or transact in digital assets. This removes the requirement for end users to manage exchange accounts or on-chain wallets, lowering the operational barrier for enterprises new to stablecoin settlement.

Supported Chains and Assets

On the blockchain side, Rail supports Solana, Ethereum, XRP Ledger, Bitcoin, Polygon, Tron, Near, and Binance Smart Chain. Stablecoins available at launch included USDC and USDT; RLUSD and XRP were announced for integration following the Ripple acquisition. On the fiat side, USD is the primary supported currency, with EUR, GBP, MXN, and AED available and a pipeline of emerging-market currencies including HKD, SGD, INR, BRL, COP, and ARS in development.

Payment network coverage includes Fedwire and ACH in the United States, SEPA Credit Transfer in the eurozone, and FPS plus CHAPS in the United Kingdom. SWIFT remains supported for international wires where blockchain rails are not available or practical.

Solana fits Rail's infrastructure as a high-throughput, low-cost settlement layer for stablecoin transfers. USDC on Solana offers near-instant finality and sub-cent transaction costs, which aligns with Rail's cross-border B2B use cases where speed and fee efficiency are primary requirements. The chain's transaction throughput and settlement guarantees make it well-suited for the payment volumes Rail targets.

Target Users and Use Cases

Rail is built for B2B transactions, with average deal sizes in the $50,000 to $100,000 range. Primary use cases include cross-border accounts payable and receivable, international payroll, corporate treasury diversification, and fiat-to-crypto on/off-ramping for platforms. AngelList was cited as a flagship early customer, using Rail to move LP capital into venture deals across jurisdictions. Additional use cases include supply chain payment diversification and currency protection for contractors operating in high-inflation markets who hold stablecoins as a store of value between payment events.

The platform targets corporates, fintechs, neobanks, and platforms that want to embed compliant global payment capabilities without building regulatory infrastructure from scratch in each market.

Scale and Traction

By mid-2025, Rail reported processing approximately 10 percent of global B2B stablecoin payments, corresponding to roughly $3.6 billion in annual volume against an estimated $36 billion total market. In the period leading up to its Series A, the company reported consistent 20 percent month-over-month growth in transaction volume.

Funding and Team

Rail raised a $10.7 million Series A in July 2024, led by Galaxy Ventures. Earlier rounds were completed under the Layer2 Financial name. CEO Bhanu Kohli and CTO Tarun Mistry built the platform from 2021 with an explicit goal of displacing SWIFT infrastructure using blockchain-native payment routing. The company operated from Toronto throughout its independent phase.

Acquisition by Ripple

On August 7, 2025, Ripple announced the acquisition of Rail for $200 million USD ($275 million CAD) in a combination of cash and equity. The deal closed in Q4 2025. Ripple's stated rationale was to combine Rail's virtual account infrastructure and automated back-office capabilities with Ripple's existing global payments network and RLUSD stablecoin. Ripple president Monica Long described the acquisition as positioning the company to "drive the next phase of innovation and adoption of stablecoins and blockchain in global payments."

The acquisition followed Ripple's broader consolidation in the period, which also included Hidden Road (prime brokerage, renamed Ripple Prime), GTreasury (corporate finance SaaS), and Palisade (crypto custody). Rail's multi-chain stablecoin infrastructure added B2B payment volume and virtual account capabilities that Ripple's network previously lacked at scale.

Following the acquisition, rail.io redirects to ripple.com. The Rail API and developer documentation remain accessible at docs.rail.io under the Ripple umbrella.