Standard Chartered Will Hold Ripple's Stablecoin in Dubai—And Let Clients Trade With It Without Moving It

In brief

• Standard Chartered's Dubai International Financial Centre branch now offers institutional custody for Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin issued on the XRP Ledger.
• A planned integration with LMAX Group would let clients use RLUSD as trading collateral through collateral mirroring, meaning the tokens stay at the bank while LMAX credits their value.
• RLUSD has grown to roughly $2.45 billion in market cap, still under 1% of a stablecoin market worth about $306 billion.

Standard Chartered will now hold Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin for institutional clients in Dubai, and it wants to let them trade with those tokens without ever handing them over to an exchange.

“Standard Chartered today announced that it now supports institutional custody of Ripple USD (RLUSD) issued on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), giving eligible clients access to the Bank’s digital asset custody infrastructure. The service is available through Standard Chartered Bank’s DIFC Branch, which is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA).” the British bank announced Monday

Custody is the unglamorous plumbing of finance: a regulated institution keeps your asset in its vault and answers for it if something goes wrong. The institution has the legal responsibility over your assets and will respond to you, but will also get permission to supervise, freeze and control your funds while they are under custody.