Ripple’s official documentation reveals how its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) system handles payments that fail after a sender has already converted fiat currency into $XRP.
The process allows ODL (now Ripple Payments) to convert the $XRP back into fiat and move the funds into a Sender Segregated Account (SSA) at the receiving institution.
This gives the sender a way to recover the funds when the $XRP transfer succeeds, but a problem prevents the payment from reaching its final destination.