Ripple and BNY Expand Partnership to Custody XRP and RLUSD and Explore Tokenized Trade Finance
Key Facts
Ripple and BNY announced on October 27, 2026, that they were expanding their strategic partnership to broaden institutional digital asset custody capabilities and explore new uses for blockchain technology. Ripple said BNY now supports custody of XRP and RLUSD on its digital custody platform. The move follows Ripple’s selection of the bank as the initial custodian for RLUSD reserves on July 9, 2025. The announcement said the partnership also includes work on tokenized trade finance on the XRP Ledger. The expansion places existing custody services alongside future plans for stablecoin issuance and redemption and supply chain finance.
Support for XRP expands the scope of the announced custody services; Ripple describes the currency as the native digital asset of the XRP Ledger network. The company said BNY now supports XRP and RLUSD on its digital custody platform, with the announcement extending beyond the bank’s previous role in RLUSD reserves. In 2025, Ripple selected BNY for initial custody of those reserves, while the financial institution said its transaction banking services would support stablecoin operations and provide integrated solutions. This sequence provides context for the partnership: from reserve custody and transaction services to custody support for both currencies on the platform. The announcement does not say BNY will issue RLUSD; it says the bank’s clients will be able to mint and redeem it directly through the bank at a later stage.
Ripple said BNY plans to expand its support for tokenized assets and investment products issued on the XRP Ledger, and to work with Ripple to enable the bank’s clients to mint and redeem RLUSD directly through it. The company presents this as an extension of the institutional partnership, while the announcement does not specify when this capability will begin. RLUSD’s market capitalization was about $2.5 billion at the time of the expansion announcement on October 27, 2026, a scale that puts the stablecoin at the center of the announced partnership plans. According to Ripple, issuance of the stablecoin remains the responsibility of Standard Custody & Trust Company, which is regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. The company said final approval to establish Ripple National Trust Bank followed conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in December 2025, and that the approved activities include managing RLUSD’s segregated reserves, acting as their fiduciary custodian and providing fiduciary custody services for digital assets.
In trade finance, the companies said they intend to develop tokenized trade finance on the XRP Ledger, identifying a supply chain finance initiative with C2FO as a first step. The initiative links the announced use of the digital ledger to a specific financing application, rather than limiting the discussion to expanding asset custody. Ripple said the XRP Ledger has processed more than 4.6 billion transactions since its launch, with transaction settlement taking about 3 to 5 seconds. The company cites these capabilities in presenting the network for use in tokenized products and supply chain finance. The announcement did not specify a start date for the initiative or details of its scope.
In the market, XRP/USD recorded a daily close of $1.3001 on October 27, compared with a close of $1.3092 the previous day, according to EL7 data. This is a comparison of two consecutive daily closes, and EL7 data does not attribute the move to the partnership announcement. As for RLUSD, Ripple said it is fully backed by U.S. dollar deposits, U.S. government securities and cash equivalents. It added that it publishes independent monthly attestation reports covering circulating supply and reserve assets. This information provides background on the reserve structure and disclosures underpinning BNY’s role as initial custodian, alongside the transaction services the bank said would support stablecoin operations.