Ripple opened its Swell conference in New York on Tuesday, Oct. 27, with two expanded partnerships announced the same morning: one with BNY, and one with Robinhood. Both rest on Ripple’s dollar stablecoin, RLUSD, and on the XRP Ledger. Neither release discloses a deal size.
The news follows Monday’s final OCC approval for Ripple National Trust Bank, which will manage RLUSD’s reserves. That trust charter takes no deposits, makes no loans, has no FDIC insurance, and has no opening date yet.
BNY: custody for XRP and RLUSD
- BNY’s Digital Asset Custody platform now supports XRP and RLUSD for eligible institutional clients, the companies said in a Business Wire release.
- BNY was already the primary reserve custodian for RLUSD and holds assets for Ripple Prime. The expansion adds client custody of the tokens themselves, not only of the dollar reserves behind the stablecoin.
- BNY and Ripple say they intend to let BNY clients mint and redeem RLUSD directly through BNY. The release marks that step with an asterisk as a future plan. It is not live, and no launch date was given.
- BNY also intends to broaden support for tokenized assets issued on the XRP Ledger as use cases develop.
“We’re moving past the initial issuance of assets onchain – now, it’s all about making these tokenized assets usable for payments and collateral across financial markets,” Ripple President Monica Long said.
Trade finance: exploratory with BNY, waitlist with C2FO
Ripple and BNY also said they intend to advance tokenized trade finance on the XRP Ledger, “subject to client requirements.” As a first step, they are exploring a supply-chain finance initiative with C2FO, a working-capital platform. That work is exploratory, not a live book of business.
Separately, C2FO plans to settle Instant Pay supplier payments on the XRP Ledger in RLUSD, in seconds rather than days, and is taking sign-ups through a waitlist. The release does not say Instant Pay is live.
Robinhood: RLUSD, treasury and prime brokerage
- RLUSD is live now on Robinhood Chain and on Bitstamp by Robinhood. It is expected in the main Robinhood app later this year, according to a Ripple–Robinhood release. The releases do not say XRP is being added to the Robinhood app.
- Robinhood plans to use RLUSD on the XRP Ledger to settle institutional trades through Bitstamp by Robinhood.
- Robinhood will integrate Ripple Treasury to run its own cash, liquidity, forecasting, payments, risk management and intercompany netting.
- Ripple Prime already provides Bitstamp with lending and margin financing across about 20 digital assets and gives Ripple Prime clients access to trade spot on Bitstamp. Support for perpetual futures on Bitstamp is planned for later in the year.
“Utility is what moves stablecoins forward,” said Johann Kerbrat, SVP and general manager of Robinhood Crypto and International.
What it is not
None of these releases says BNY clients can mint or redeem RLUSD today, that tokenized trade-finance volume is live on the XRP Ledger, or that XRP is coming to the Robinhood app. No dollar amounts were disclosed for either partnership. Figures for RLUSD’s market size vary slightly across the same day’s releases, so this piece does not treat any single number as settled fact.
Sources: Business Wire, Ripple, Robinhood, C2FO, BNY, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.