Ripple is expanding the XRP Ledger’s role in institutional finance with new infrastructure for issuing, trading, settling, lending against and holding tokenised assets, as financial institutions move beyond pilot projects and towards continuous, production-grade activity.
Ripple President Monica Long outlined the company’s wider strategy on 4 August, following the announcement of strategic investments in Zilo and Licuido. The deals are intended to strengthen institutional capital-markets infrastructure linked to the XRP Ledger and add support for fund issuance, trading and settlement.
She said the market had reached a turning point, writing on X: “In the last year, we’ve seen the veritable light switch flip – from bank pilots to production, from issuing tokenized assets like money market funds and liquidity funds to using them! Institutional capital markets are moving in one direction onchain 24/7,”
The investments form part of Ripple’s broader attempt to provide a full digital-asset stack, connecting programmable funds with settlement, liquidity, yield, collateral and compliance services across the tokenised-asset lifecycle.
Ripple’s Mint platform, launched on 23 July, is central to that strategy. It gives financial institutions a single interface through which they can access, mint, redeem and manage Ripple USD, also known as RLUSD. The platform supports the issuance and transfer of the stablecoin across both fiat-based and blockchain settlement systems.
Ripple’s tokenisation platform can also be used by institutional issuers to create securities, stablecoins, fund units, bonds, commodities and other real-world asset tokens. Its features include issuance and redemption tools, compliance screening, transfer restrictions, audit trails, freeze controls, clawbacks and multichain distribution.
A partnership involving DBS, Franklin Templeton and Ripple demonstrates how tokenised assets could continue to support portfolio management after issuance. Under the arrangement, eligible DBS clients can exchange RLUSD for Franklin Templeton’s tokenised money market fund within minutes while retaining access to yield.
DBS plans to examine whether those tokenised fund units could also be accepted as collateral through bank repurchase agreements or third-party lending platforms. The structure would enable institutional investors to move during the day between a stable settlement asset and an income-producing investment.
Real-world asset tokens can represent bonds, funds, commodities and property on blockchain networks. Their use can allow faster transfers and settlement around the clock.
The proposed XRPL Lending Protocol would add standardised institutional lending to the network’s tokenisation infrastructure. Under the design, underwriting and compliance decisions would remain off-chain, while servicing, repayments, interest calculations and defaults would be managed on-chain. The protocol is intended to support treasuries, stablecoins, commodities, money market funds and private credit.
Separate XRPL infrastructure is being developed to connect XRP and RLUSD liquidity with tokenised United States Treasury products offering regulated, reserve-backed yield. A partnership between Doppler Finance and Openeden plans to bring Openeden’s TBILL token and yield-bearing USDO stablecoin into an XRPL-native protocol. The proposal includes audited reserves, regulated custody and compliance controls.
The Bank for International Settlements identified tokenisation as a possible source of faster, programmable payments and more efficient financial intermediation. However, its 2026 assessment also called for trusted settlement instruments, co-ordinated oversight and stronger safeguards, while warning that existing stablecoin structures could create financial-integrity and monetary risks.
The next stage of Ripple’s expansion will depend on validator decisions about the proposed lending standards. Those decisions would determine whether tokenised assets on the XRP Ledger can be used for institutional borrowing at protocol level.
Ripple chief executive Brad Garlinghouse has also outlined XRP’s role in institutional payments, citing $16 trillion in annual payments and clearing activity across…
