Ripple’s RLUSD gains institutional backing as Standard Chartered debuts Dubai custody

Global bank giant Standard Chartered now offers institutional custody of Ripple’s USD-pegged stablecoin RLUSD on the XRP Ledger through its Dubai branch, giving eligible clients a regulated bank to hold the dollar-pegged stablecoin.

The bank, with nearly $450 billion in assets under management, also plans to work with Ripple and LMAX Group, an institutional trading venue for foreign exchange and digital assets, so clients can use RLUSD held at Standard Chartered as collateral for trading on LMAX’s platform. That part of the arrangement is not yet live and remains subject to documentation, testing, regulatory requirements and internal approvals, the bank said on Monday via email.

LMAX plans to allow clients to use RLUSD held at Standard Chartered to back trades, so they would not need to transfer the stablecoin to the venue.

That could appeal to banks, funds and other institutions that want to trade with stablecoins but do not want to leave the assets at a trading venue. It separates custody from execution: the bank holds the tokens and the venue accepts their value as collateral.