In brief
- Ripple received regulatory approval in Singapore to broaden payment services using XRP and RLUSD stablecoin under its Major Payment Institution license.
- XRP surged to a new all-time high price earlier this year, breaking a seven-year record in the process.
- However, XRP has fallen 45% from that peak, recently trading hands for about $2.00.
Ripple has received approval from Singapore’s Monetary Authority (MAS) to expand payment activities under its Major Payment Institution license held by subsidiary Ripple Markets APAC, the crypto giant announced Monday.
This expansion allows the crypto-powered fintech company to broaden its regulated payment offerings to Singapore customers, including via the XRP cryptocurrency and Ripple’s own RLUSD dollar-backed stablecoin.
“MAS has set a leading standard for regulatory clarity in digital assets, and we deeply value Singapore’s forward-thinking approach,” said Ripple President Monica Long, in a statement. “Ripple has always taken a regulation-first approach and Singapore is proof that innovation thrives when rules are clear.”
“This expanded license strengthens our ability to continue investing in Singapore and to build the infrastructure financial institutions need to move money efficiently, quickly, and safely,” she added.
The Ripple Payments platform utilizes crypto tokens like RLUSD and XRP within a global payout network to facilitate what the company said are fast and transparent cross-border transactions for banks, crypto companies, and fintechs. In short, it allows businesses to launch digital payment services quickly without infrastructure costs.
Key features include settlements in minutes using digital payment tokens, single onboarding to replace multiple partners, and simplified digital asset access without requiring additional bank relationships or specialized infrastructure.
“The Asia Pacific region leads the world in real digital asset usage, with on-chain activity up roughly 70% year-over-year. Singapore sits at the center of that growth,” said Fiona Murray, Ripple’s VP and managing director of Asia Pacific, in a statement. “With this expanded scope of payment activities, we can better support the institutions driving that growth by offering a broad suite of regulated payment services, bringing faster, more efficient payments to our customers.”
XRP, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, was created by Ripple’s founders and surged to a new all-time high price of $3.65 in July, breaking a seven-year record along the way. That spike was fueled in part by regulatory optimism and investor excitement over anticipated ETF approvals.
But the price of XRP has stumbled in recent months despite the recent launch of XRP funds, with the coin recently trading hands at $2.00 after falling about 20% over the last 30 days—including a 9% drop over the past 24 hours.
The dollar-pegged RLUSD has a market cap of $1.26 billion, with a 24-hour trading volume mark of nearly $79 million, per data from CoinGecko.
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