XRP’s Wall Street Push Accelerates: America’s Oldest Bank BNY Joins Ripple for Tokenized Trade Finance on XRP Ledger

XRP is edging deeper into Wall Street as Ripple and America’s oldest bank, BNY Mellon, explore a new use case for the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The initiative could bring approved invoices on-chain, enabling faster financing and potentially expanding XRPL’s footprint in traditional finance.

Ripple and BNY Take Partnership to the Next Level With Tokenization Plans 

In a Tuesday press release, Ripple announced an expanded partnership with Wall Street banking giant BNY Mellon, bringing XRP and its U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, to the bank’s institutional custody platform.

BNY already serves as the primary custodian of RLUSD’s reserves and maintains a custody relationship with Ripple Prime. The expanded partnership will seek to enable BNY clients to mint and redeem RLUSD directly through the bank, while the two financial heavyweights also explore using the XRP Ledger to power tokenized trade finance.

Ripple President Monica Long emphasized that the partnership marks a shift from simply issuing tokenized assets to putting them to work across global financial markets.

“We’re moving past the initial issuance of assets onchain — now, it’s all about making these tokenized assets usable for payments and collateral across financial markets,” Long said.

She added that Ripple and BNY are building the infrastructure institutions need to move beyond holding digital assets and use them more seamlessly in capital markets and trade finance through the XRPL.

Exploring Tokenized Trade Finance on the XRP Ledger 

As part of the expanded collaboration, Ripple and BNY Mellon are also working with C2FO, a working capital platform, to explore tokenized trade finance using the XRPL. The initiative focuses on supply chain receivables, aiming to bring corporate working capital onto public blockchain infrastructure and potentially make financing more efficient and accessible for businesses.

The initiative could let suppliers access funds within seconds against approved invoices, instead of waiting several days for traditional bank transfers to clear. Participating capital providers would finance the payments, while existing invoice terms and repayment deadlines would remain unchanged, potentially helping businesses unlock working capital faster without altering established payment arrangements.

RLUSD’s rapid growth adds another dimension to Ripple’s push into institutional finance. Since debuting in December 2024, the dollar-pegged stablecoin has reached roughly $2.5 billion in market capitalization, including more than $1 billion issued on the XRPL. Ripple says the ledger has now handled over 4.6 billion transactions, with transfers settling in just three to five seconds — capabilities that could prove valuable as financial institutions explore blockchain-based payments and trade finance.

The expanded BNY Mellon partnership comes as Ripple rolls out a series of major announcements ahead of its annual Swell event. Among the latest developments, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has granted final go-ahead for Ripple’s proposed national trust bank, a milestone previously announced by CEO Brad Garlinghouse that could further strengthen the company’s position in the U.S. financial system.