Mentioned in This Article
1. BNY XRP custody: what the bank announced
BNY, the custody bank that already safeguards the reserves behind Ripple's stablecoin, now holds XRP and the RLUSD stablecoin for institutional clients on its Digital Asset Custody platform. Ripple announced the arrangement on October 27. Eligible BNY clients can store and move both assets inside the bank's existing servicing and controls framework, according to the release.
The step builds on a relationship that began in July 2025, when Ripple selected BNY as the primary custodian for the reserves supporting RLUSD. BNY also has a custody relationship with Ripple Prime, Ripple's prime brokerage business. Until now, the bank's role centered on holding the dollar assets behind the token; it now extends to holding the token itself and the XRP that circulates on the XRP Ledger (XRPL).
For institutional investors, the practical change is access. A pension fund, asset manager or corporate treasury that already keeps securities and cash at BNY can, if eligible, hold these two digital assets with the same custodian instead of opening a separate relationship with a crypto-native provider.
2. What are XRP and RLUSD?
XRP is the native digital asset of the XRP Ledger, a public blockchain that Ripple helped develop and that is built for fast, low-cost value transfer. RLUSD is a dollar-denominated stablecoin issued by Ripple, designed to hold a stable value against the US dollar and backed by reserves held in segregated accounts. The two assets serve different roles: XRP is a freely traded token whose price moves with the market, while RLUSD is meant to behave like a digital dollar.
Because they differ in purpose, institutions approach them differently. An asset manager might hold XRP as an investment exposure, while a payments company or treasury department might hold RLUSD as a settlement instrument. Offering both through one custodian lets BNY serve either kind of client, and it signals that the bank sees demand across the token spectrum rather than only for stablecoins.
The pairing is also logical from Ripple's point of view. BNY's earlier work focused on the reserves that give RLUSD its backing, which is a conventional banking function of holding cash and short-term assets. Adding the tokens themselves to the custody platform extends that relationship from the assets behind the stablecoin to the stablecoin and its sister asset.
3. Why does custody matter for institutions?
Custody is the function that makes an asset usable by regulated investors. A custodian holds assets on behalf of clients, keeps records of ownership, processes transfers and applies controls that auditors and supervisors expect. Many institutions are barred by policy or regulation from holding assets that do not sit with a qualified custodian, so the availability of a trusted name can determine whether a token is investable at all.
For crypto assets, custody also involves protecting the private keys that authorize movement of funds. Banks that offer the service therefore combine traditional safekeeping obligations with technology for key storage and transaction approval. By placing XRP and RLUSD inside its existing platform, BNY lets clients treat them under familiar servicing processes rather than as a special case outside the main operating model.
That framing explains why the announcement stresses the bank's existing controls. For a large institution, the appeal of the offering is less about new capabilities on the blockchain than about reducing the operational and compliance friction of using them.
4. What are the pending plans for the XRP Ledger and RLUSD?
The remainder of the announcement describes intentions, not live products. BNY plans to expand the range of tokenized assets and investment products it supports on the XRPL, the public blockchain that Ripple supports. A second plan would allow BNY customers to mint and redeem RLUSD directly without leaving the bank.
Direct minting and redemption matter because they shorten the path between a bank balance and a stablecoin. In many stablecoin systems, customers must use an exchange or an intermediary to convert dollars into tokens and back. If a custody bank can handle that conversion in the same account where the client already holds cash, it removes a step and keeps the activity within the bank's own oversight.
In practical terms, a client able to mint and redeem within the bank would not need to move funds to an outside venue, and the bank would keep a complete record of the conversion in its own systems. That is the kind of control large institutions look for before they place meaningful balances in a new asset.
Both plans require final approval from BNY and from regulators, and no timeline was given. The wording of the release leaves open whether they will move ahead quickly, slowly or in modified form, and the outcome will depend on supervisory decisions and on whether clients actually want the services.
5. How does trade finance with C2FO fit in?
Ripple and BNY also intend to bring tokenized trade finance to the XRPL, subject to client demand. As a first step they are exploring a supply chain finance project with C2FO, a working capital marketplace. The aim is to open receivables, meaning the invoices that businesses expect to be paid, to a wider pool of investors.
Supply chain finance generally lets suppliers receive cash earlier than the agreed payment date, with an investor taking the gap between the early payment and the later settlement. Tokenizing those receivables could make them easier to divide, transfer and track, which in turn could attract investors who would not otherwise participate in the market.
Ragui Selwanes, president and chief operating officer for the Americas at C2FO, said the company is interested in a new model for financing approved receivables that could broaden access to capital while preserving existing customer relationships. The project remains at an early, exploratory stage and has no announced launch date or scale.
6. What did Ripple and BNY executives say?
Monica Long, Ripple's president, said the goal is to make tokenized assets useful for payments and collateral across financial markets. Those two uses are central to the stablecoin pitch: payments because tokens can move around the clock, and collateral because a digital dollar can be posted and returned faster than a conventional transfer.
Carolyn Weinberg, BNY's chief innovation and market transformation officer, described the collaboration as an effort to build a more continuous, efficient and resilient financial system. The language reflects the bank's wider interest in moving beyond cut-off times and settlement delays that define traditional market infrastructure.
Such language is typical of large institutions describing digital-asset initiatives. It places the work inside a longer-running argument that markets built on batch processing and business-hours settlement leave capital idle, and that tokenized instruments could free it. Whether that argument translates into measurable demand, and how quickly, is the question the bank and Ripple will face once the pending services are tested with real clients.
The statements are broad and carry no commitments on volume or timing. They indicate direction, while the specific deliverables are limited to the custody service that is live today and the proposals that still await approval.
7. How does the trust bank approval affect the arrangement?
The announcement arrived a day after Ripple received final federal approval for Ripple National Trust Bank, which is slated to manage the segregated reserves backing RLUSD. That timing invites questions about the future division of labor between Ripple's own trust bank and BNY, which has been the reserve custodian since July 2025.
Ripple's release did not mention the trust bank or explain how it would affect BNY's role. Any change would presumably be described in later disclosures, and for now the two developments should be treated as separate pieces of news that happen to overlap in the same week.
For competitors and clients alike, the arrangement also illustrates how regulated stablecoin issuers tend to build their credibility: by pairing themselves with established financial names. A custodian with a long record in safekeeping brings supervisory familiarity, audited processes and relationships that a young issuer cannot create on its own, and in return the bank gains a foothold in a segment its clients increasingly ask about.
The overlap nonetheless shows how quickly the infrastructure around regulated stablecoins is being assembled. A token issuer can now point to a federally approved trust entity, a major custody bank holding both its reserves and the token itself, and a public ledger with a settlement record, all within a short span.
8. What do the market figures show?
RLUSD's market capitalization was about $2.6 billion on Wednesday, according to CoinGecko, slightly above the roughly $2.5 billion that Ripple cited. For context, that makes it a mid-sized stablecoin compared with the largest dollar tokens, but a meaningful one for an issuer whose stablecoin is still relatively young.
Ripple said the XRPL has processed more than 4.6 billion transactions to date and settles transfers in about three to five seconds. Those figures describe network history and design speed rather than institutional demand, and they are provided by the company.
Figures like these are useful mainly as a baseline. A stablecoin's size affects how liquid it is, how easily large institutions can move in and out without disrupting the price, and how seriously banks treat it when deciding which tokens to support. Growth in circulation after the custody addition, if it comes, would be one early indicator of whether bank distribution changes demand.
The next milestones to watch are the approvals BNY and regulators must give to the minting and expanded asset plans, any further detail on the C2FO project, and clarity on how the reserve arrangements will work now that Ripple has its own national trust bank. Until those arrive, the live offering is custody of XRP and RLUSD for eligible institutional clients.