Ripple Announces Acquisition of Standard Custody & Trust Company, Expands Its Portfolio of Regulatory Licenses

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ripple, the leader in enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions, announced today that it has agreed to acquire Standard Custody & Trust Company, an enterprise-grade regulated platform for digital assets. This move further underscores Ripple's commitment to regulatory compliance and enables the company to strengthen its existing product offerings, as well as explore new, complementary products.

The increase in institutional adoption of crypto and blockchain is a result of more mature and highly secure products in the market that are fully regulated and compliant. With this acquisition, Standard Custody's limited purpose trust charter and its money transmitter licenses will contribute to Ripple’s growing portfolio of regulatory licenses. Ripple and its subsidiaries collectively hold a New York BitLicense, nearly 40 money transmitter licenses across the U.S., a Major Payment Institution License from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and a Virtual Asset Service Provider registration with the Central Bank of Ireland.

“Ripple and Standard Custody are dedicated to enabling enterprises to reap the benefits of blockchain across a host of financial use cases building institutional-grade solutions to tokenize, store, move, and exchange value. By expanding our licenses portfolio and making smart acquisitions, Ripple is well-positioned to take advantage of the current market opportunities and further strengthen our crypto infrastructure solutions,” said Monica Long, Ripple President. “We will continue to leverage our strong financial standing to expand our product offerings, support new initiatives on the product roadmap and serve a broader segment of customers.”

Ripple's global momentum remains unmatched, serving enterprises globally. The acquisition of Standard Custody follows last year’s acquisition of Metaco, a custody solution preferred by banks around the world. Recently, Ripple announced its custody partnerships with top-tier banks, such as HSBC, BBVA and Zodia Custody, and expansion to new territories for its Ripple Payments offering, such as Africa. Doubling down on its core businesses in Payments and Custody, Ripple supports live commercial custody offerings in 20 regulatory jurisdictions, and payments into 70 countries around the world.

“Standard Custody provides financial institutions with the confidence and platform to safeguard their digital assets. Ripple continues to lead the industry with its deep crypto expertise, relationships with financial institutions and strong product offerings, across both payments and custody. Together with Ripple, we will further innovate and extend our leadership position in providing crypto infrastructure,” says Jack McDonald, Standard Custody CEO.

The closing of the transaction is subject to regulatory approval and standard closing conditions. TD Cowen served as exclusive financial advisor to PolySign.

About Ripple

Ripple is the leader in enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions, transforming how the world moves, manages, tokenizes and stores value. Ripple’s business solutions are faster, more transparent, and more cost effective - solving inefficiencies that have long defined the status quo. And together with partners and the larger developer community, we identify use cases where crypto technology will inspire new business models and create opportunity for more people. With every solution, we’re realizing a more sustainable global economy and planet - increasing access to inclusive and scalable financial systems while leveraging carbon neutral blockchain technology and a green digital asset, XRP. This is how we deliver on our mission to build crypto solutions for a world without economic borders.

About Standard Custody & Trust Company

Standard Custody & Trust Company is an institutional-grade custody and escrow platform for digital assets. A subsidiary of PolySign, Inc., Standard’s platform offers novel blockchain technology that provides end-to-end encryption and distributed trust protocols for securing secret keys. Standard embodies high standards for regulatory and compliance excellence, empowering financial institutions to leverage their digital asset positions with confidence in best-in-class security protocols. For more information, please visit standardcustody.com.