Ripple has announced plans to expand operations in Brazil, South America’s largest economy, aiming to improve its digital asset services in the country and obtain a key license from Brazilian regulatory authorities. 

The company revealed that it is now the only provider in the region capable of addressing a comprehensive range of financial needs, including cross-border payments, digital asset custody, prime brokerage, and treasury management.

Ripple Prepares To Launch Custody Services

As part of its growth strategy, Ripple aims to apply for a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license with the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB), in accordance with the nation’s newly established virtual asset regulatory framework. 

“Latin America has always been a priority market for Ripple—not just for the size of the opportunity but also because Brazil has developed one of the most advanced and forward-thinking financial ecosystems worldwide,” stated Monica Long, President at Ripple. 

She emphasized that Ripple has spent years building the trust, licensing, and technological infrastructure necessary to thrive in regulated markets, and with the expansion of its platform, the firm is now equipped to meet the needs of institutions throughout the region.

Ripple has also showcased significant collaborations with major institutions utilizing its technology to address real-world challenges related to liquidity and payments. Notable partners include Brazil’s Banco Genial, Nomad, and Braza Bank.

Additionally, Ripple Custody is set to launch in Brazil, offering bank-grade security, real-time compliance features, and flexible deployment options for regulated institutions. 

Established following the firm’s acquisition of Metaco in 2023, Ripple Custody provides institutions with the infrastructure required to hold digital assets, as well as facilitate payments, trading, and tokenization workflows. 

The service is designed to support a wide array of hardware security module (HSM) providers and integrates with Chainalysis and Elliptic for real-time transaction monitoring, as well as enabling institutional staking across Proof-of-Stake (PoS) networks.

Tokenization Initiatives And RLUSD Expansion In Brazil

In Tuesday’s release, it was also stated that Brazil-based CRX, which specializes in tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs), is leveraging the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and Ripple Custody to issue and manage tokenized RWAs on a large scale, with approximately $100 million settled on blockchain. 

Similarly, Justoken, which has already tokenized over $1.7 billion in assets on the XRPL, plans to utilize the firm’s Custody tools to create institutional-grade infrastructure for natural resources tokenization in Latin America.

The company’s RLUSD stablecoin is reportedly gaining notable momentum in Latin America, where institutions are seeking trusted, regulated digital dollar options. 

Ripple disclosed that RLUSD is already being adopted by some of the largest exchanges and fintech companies in the country, including Mercado Bitcoin, Foxbit, Ripio, and Attrus. 

At the time of writing, Ripple’s associated cryptocurrency, XRP, was trading at $1.52, up 7% in the last week and 1% in the last 24 hours. 

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com