News 
Coin Information 
About us 
Customer Service 
Ripple said the shift from traditional financial rails to blockchain-based infrastructure is no longer theoretical, arguing that the institutional transition to digital assets is already underway as banks and market intermediaries focus on custody, settlement, and real-world payments rather than speculation.
Speaking Tuesday 04:00 UTC (Tuesday 12:00 a.m. ET) at the Institutional Web3 Forum in Seoul, Eun-jin Lee, APAC head of sales at Ripple, presented on “Digital asset adoption in institutional finance: custody and global payments innovation.” Lee framed Ripple’s strategy around the company’s long-standing thesis—'Let value move like information'—positioning blockchain as a foundation for faster, simpler, and more seamless value transfer across borders.
Lee argued that while information moves at near-zero marginal cost and in real time, money and financial assets remain constrained by fragmented national systems, limited operating hours, and multi-step correspondent processes that can introduce settlement delays and high fees. Blockchain-based rails, she said, can reshape legacy infrastructure into a more 'simple', 'transparent', and 'trustworthy' model for moving value and settling transactions.
Crucially, Ripple’s message was that institutional interest has evolved. “In the past, digital assets were often viewed first through an investment or speculative lens, but that has changed,” Lee said, adding that institutions are now taking a more practical view: how to store digital assets safely, exchange them efficiently, and connect them to payments and remittances in compliant workflows.
Lee described institutional adoption as expanding beyond a single product category into a broader reconfiguration of the financial value chain—spanning 'custody', 'payments', 'stablecoins', 'prime brokerage', and 'treasury'. In that context, she positioned Ripple not as an experimental crypto company but as a global financial infrastructure provider aiming to meet institutional demands for 'trust', 'scale', 'operational readiness', and 'regulatory compliance'.
“Institutional-grade financial infrastructure is not achieved by technology alone,” Lee said. She emphasized Ripple’s focus on combining security, compliance capabilities, and operational stability—turning blockchain tooling into products that financial institutions can use in day-to-day operations.
During the session, Ripple outlined what it described as its core institutional pillars: custody services; XRP-based liquidity solutions; an institutional prime brokerage platform; treasury tooling aimed at liquidity management and cash forecasting; and its U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin, RLUSD. Lee stressed that what matters to institutions is not flashy technology but 'deployability'—and that Ripple’s offerings are designed to function as a connected stack, leveraging the XRP Ledger (XRPL) as a foundational network component.
Ripple also shared operational metrics intended to demonstrate institutional scale. The company said it holds more than 75 global licenses and has processed over $100 billion in payments volume. In custody, Ripple said it supports more than 20 regulatory jurisdictions and counts HSBC, Société Générale, and DBS among customers. For its institutional platform “Prime,” Ripple cited annual volume exceeding $3 trillion. It also highlighted its treasury solutions, which it said support $12.5 trillion in annual funds movement, using AI-driven automation to improve liquidity management, cash forecasting, and risk-management efficiency.
The Institutional Web3 Forum was co-hosted by TokenPost, the Korea Fintech Industry Association (KORFIN), and the Open Blockchain & AI Institute (OBDIA), with Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit serving as official sponsors. Around 100 invited participants from South Korean commercial banks, securities firms, insurers, fintech companies, and digital-asset businesses attended to discuss topics where regulated finance and Web3 intersect, including stablecoins, custody, and on-chain financial infrastructure.
The takeaway from Ripple’s presentation was that the next phase of crypto market development is likely to be driven less by retail trading cycles and more by institutions building interoperable, compliant infrastructure. If that thesis holds, competition will increasingly hinge on licensing footprint, operational resilience, and integration with existing financial workflows—areas Ripple is signaling as its primary battleground.
🔎 Market Interpretation
- Institutional adoption is shifting from “asset speculation” to “financial infrastructure”: Ripple argues that banks and intermediaries are prioritizing custody, settlement, and real-world payments workflows over trading-led narratives.
- Blockchain is framed as a replacement rail for cross-border value transfer: The core claim is that money still moves through fragmented, time-limited, multi-hop correspondent networks, creating fees and delays that blockchain-based rails can compress.
- Competitive advantage is moving to execution, not ideology: The article signals that future winners may be determined by licensing coverage, operational resilience, and smooth integration into existing compliance and treasury processes.
- Ripple is positioning itself as an institutional stack provider: Rather than a single-product crypto firm, Ripple presents a connected suite (custody, liquidity, prime brokerage, treasury tooling, stablecoin) built around XRPL.
- Scale and regulatory readiness are used as key proof points: Ripple cites 75+ licenses, $100B+ payments volume, custody coverage across 20+ jurisdictions, “Prime” volume of $3T+ annually, and treasury tooling supporting $12.5T in annual funds movement.
💡 Strategic Points
- For banks and financial institutions: Prioritize custody and compliant settlement capabilities as foundational prerequisites before expanding to tokenized payments, on-chain treasury, or stablecoin usage.
- For payment providers and remittance networks: Evaluate blockchain rails where they measurably reduce settlement time, pre-funding needs, and correspondent banking complexity; focus on deployable integrations rather than pilot-only experiments.
- For institutions assessing vendors: Due diligence should emphasize licensing footprint, control frameworks, security posture, auditability, uptime/SLAs, and regulatory reporting—not only throughput or chain features.
- On product architecture: A connected stack (custody → liquidity → payments/settlement → treasury automation) can reduce operational friction versus point solutions, especially for institutions needing unified risk controls.
- On stablecoins (RLUSD mention): Stablecoins are presented as a practical settlement instrument; institutions should assess issuance governance, reserves/attestations, redemption mechanics, and jurisdictional compliance before production deployment.
- On market trajectory: If institutional buildout continues, crypto cycles may become less retail-driven and more influenced by enterprise adoption milestones (licenses, partnerships, integrations, and transaction volumes tied to real usage).
📘 Glossary
- Financial rails: The underlying networks and processes that move money (e.g., correspondent banking, ACH, SWIFT), often involving multiple intermediaries and batch settlement.
- Blockchain-based infrastructure / rails: Payment and settlement mechanisms that use distributed ledgers to record and settle transfers, potentially enabling faster and more transparent processing.
- Custody: Secure storage and administration of digital assets on behalf of clients, including key management, governance controls, and regulatory-grade reporting.
- Settlement: The final completion of a transaction—when ownership and payment are irrevocably exchanged.
- Correspondent banking: A chain of banks that route cross-border payments through intermediaries, often causing higher fees and slower settlement.
- Liquidity solutions (XRP-based): Tools intended to source or bridge liquidity for transfers, aiming to reduce the need for pre-funded accounts in multiple currencies (as described by Ripple’s positioning).
- Prime brokerage (institutional): A bundled service layer for large traders/institutions that can include execution, financing, custody connectivity, and operational support.
- Treasury tooling: Systems used by institutions to manage cash positions, liquidity, and forecasts; in this article, positioned as benefiting from AI-driven automation.
- Stablecoin (RLUSD): A token designed to maintain a stable value (typically pegged to a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar); RLUSD is Ripple’s USD-denominated stablecoin referenced in the article.
- XRPL (XRP Ledger): The blockchain network Ripple highlights as a foundational component for its institutional product stack.
- Operational readiness / deployability: The ability to run reliably in production with required controls (security, compliance, monitoring, incident response) rather than remaining a proof-of-concept.
Comment 0