Ripple Announces Robinhood Partnership, Expands Custody and Digital Finance Services
Key Facts
On October 27, 2026, Ripple announced a strategic partnership with Robinhood, alongside an expansion of its collaboration with BNY and final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a national trust bank. The agreements link the use of RLUSD in Robinhood’s digital asset ecosystem with management of its financial operations and expanded institutional custody services. The areas of cooperation also include tokenized trade finance services on the XRPL network. Robinhood’s CEO said the two companies “offer complementary capabilities, with Ripple’s institutional business and our more retail-focused business.” The announcements come as the company works to expand RLUSD’s use across retail and institutional channels.
Under the partnership, Robinhood will use the RLUSD stablecoin in its digital asset ecosystem, including Robinhood Chain and Bitstamp by Robinhood, with the currency expected to become available in the app later in 2026. The company will also integrate Ripple Treasury into its global operations for cash and liquidity management, cash flow forecasting, payments, risk management and intercompany settlement. This gives Ripple Treasury a direct role in running Robinhood’s financial treasury, rather than simply providing a digital asset management tool. Separately, Ripple Treasury announced its 24/7 Returns feature, which allows eligible clients to earn returns on eligible digital assets held in a Ripple wallet, including RLUSD, subject to program requirements. This does not mean the platform has launched as a service available to everyone; access depends on client and asset eligibility and the program’s terms.
The agreement extends to Ripple Prime, which provides Bitstamp by Robinhood with financing and margin lending across about 20 digital assets. Robinhood plans to support perpetual futures trading on Bitstamp later in the year. On the institutional side, BNY announced that it supports XRP and RLUSD on its digital custody platform for eligible institutional clients. This places the digital assets within a bank custody service aimed at institutions, while the Robinhood partnership focuses on integrating RLUSD into a broader set of products and operational systems. Ripple’s announcement said Robinhood serves 28.6 million funded customers globally, in a market where total stablecoin supply has exceeded 300 billion dollars.
Ripple said the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted final approval to establish Ripple National Trust Bank, following preliminary conditional approval in December 2025. The approved activities include managing the segregated reserves backing RLUSD, acting as custodian for those reserves on behalf of the currency’s holders, and providing trust custody services for digital assets. Standard Custody & Trust Company, a limited-purpose trust company regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services, will continue to issue RLUSD. The proposed bank therefore adds reserve management and custody functions to the currency’s infrastructure, while the current issuer remains separate from it. Ripple describes the OCC approval as final for establishing the bank and the specified activities, without changing which entity issues the currency.
In its collaboration with BNY, Ripple said the bank intends to expand support for tokenized assets and investment products issued on the XRPL, and to work with Ripple to enable RLUSD minting and redemption directly through BNY. These plans remain subject to final approvals from the bank and regulators. Ripple and BNY also plan to develop tokenized trade finance on the network and have begun exploring a supply chain finance initiative with C2FO. These initiatives point to another potential use of the network in institutional transactions, alongside custody and settlement, but remain at the development and exploration stage. Ripple’s announcement said the XRPL has processed more than 4.6 billion transactions since launch, with settlement taking about 3 to 5 seconds.
RLUSD’s market capitalization has exceeded 2.4 billion dollars since the currency launched in December 2024, according to Ripple. The increase comes amid a stablecoin market whose total supply has surpassed 300 billion dollars, the partnership announcement said. In Robinhood’s third-quarter 2026 results, total revenue rose 12% year over year to 1.42 billion dollars, while cryptocurrency revenue fell 55% to 120 million dollars. Net income also declined 14% to 476 million dollars, and diluted earnings per share fell 16% to 0.51 dollars. After the results were published, the company’s stock fell 7.36% to 87.60 dollars in extended trading, after closing the regular session at 94.56 dollars on October 27.