BNY Expands XRP and RLUSD Custody as Stablecoin’s Market Cap Tops $2.5 Billion
Key Facts
Ripple and BNY announced an expansion of their strategic collaboration on October 27, 2026, with BNY’s digital asset custody platform beginning to support XRP and RLUSD custody for eligible institutional clients. The arrangement allows clients to custody, hold and transfer the assets, according to Ripple’s announcement. It expands a relationship that began with custody of RLUSD reserves to include custody of both tokens for the bank’s clients. Ripple said the parties also intend to develop tokenized trade finance on the XRP Ledger, subject to client requirements. The expansion comes as RLUSD’s market capitalization tops $2.5 billion, according to figures Ripple reported in a separate announcement the same day.
Ripple selected BNY on July 9, 2025, as the primary custodian for RLUSD reserves, and at the time also cited transaction banking services to support the stablecoin’s operations. The new announcement covers custody of XRP and RLUSD on BNY’s digital asset platform for eligible institutional clients, as well as additional areas of collaboration. BNY plans to expand its support for tokenized assets and investment products issued on the XRP Ledger and work with Ripple to enable the bank’s clients to mint and redeem RLUSD directly through BNY. The announcement did not specify when the service would become available. The collaboration therefore combines an existing custody service for eligible clients with a future step involving issuance and redemption of the stablecoin through the bank.
Ripple and BNY are exploring a supply chain finance initiative with C2FO as a pathway to developing tokenized trade finance on XRPL. In a separate announcement, Ripple and C2FO said the C2FO Instant Pay initiative will move financing and settlement activities onto the ledger, using RLUSD for settlement. The model aims to let suppliers receive funds within seconds rather than days, while invoice terms and due dates remain as agreed. C2FO said its early payment programs have helped companies access more than 250 billion in working capital by accelerating payment of approved invoices. The initiative provides operational detail on the trade finance pathway, while the BNY and Ripple announcement does not specify a launch date or the initiative’s final scope.
RLUSD’s market capitalization is above $2.5 billion, Ripple said, while more than $1 billion of the stablecoin had been issued on XRPL at the time of the announcement. Ripple said the XRP Ledger had processed more than 4.6 billion transactions since its launch, with transaction settlement taking about 3 to 5 seconds. The company cited these figures in the context of its plans to use the ledger for tokenized products and supply chain finance. BNY oversees $63.4 trillion in assets under custody or administration and manages $2.2 trillion in assets, according to figures cited by Ripple, as of September 30, 2026. Emily Portney, BNY’s head of asset servicing, said the bank is committed to delivering “integrated solutions that meet institutions’ needs across the entire digital asset ecosystem.”
BNY’s U.S. digital asset custody platform dates to 2022, when the bank announced it would make the service available to select institutional clients for custody and transfer of bitcoin and ether. The bank cited a survey at the time that found 91% of institutional investors were interested in investing in tokenized products and 41% held cryptocurrencies in their portfolios. That context places the expanded custody support for XRP and RLUSD within the development of a platform that began by serving select clients and supporting other digital assets. In July 2025, BNY said it would serve as primary custodian for RLUSD reserves and provide transaction banking services to support the stablecoin’s operations. The current announcement adds custody of the token for eligible bank clients to BNY’s earlier role with its reserves.
In a separate regulatory development, Ripple announced on October 26, 2026, that it had received final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Ripple National Trust Bank, following conditional approval issued in December 2025. The approved activities include managing RLUSD’s segregated reserves, serving as its fiduciary custodian and providing fiduciary custody services for digital assets. RLUSD will continue to be issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, according to a correction to the information in the announcement. Ripple and BNY plan to work on enabling the bank’s clients to mint and redeem the stablecoin directly through BNY, but no availability date was announced. In the market, XRP/USD closed at $1.3119 on October 27, compared with $1.3092 on October 26, according to EL7 data.