Ripple Obtains In-Principle Payments License In Singapore

June 22, 2023 7:16 pm Comments

Ripple just announced that it was able to get an in-principle payments license in Singapore which was quite a surprise given the regulatory crackdown on crypto these days.

With this new license, it essentially grants Ripple the ability to offer digital asset products and services within the country.

It also allows the company to expand the cross-border transfers of XRP which is very good news for financial institutions that utilize Ripple’s solutions for international settlements and transactions.

Singapore has always been one of the countries that has encouraged crypto innovation so it is no surprise that the country would give Ripple a license.

On the other hand, there are many other regions in the world that are preventing crypto companies from conducting business operations.

CNBC reports:

Ripple said that it was granted in-principle approval of a Major Payment Institution Licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the country’s central bank.
XRP was trading at around 50 cents late Wednesday evening.

Ripple, a San Francisco-based fintech company, is mostly known for XRP as well as an interbank messaging services based on blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins many cryptocurrencies.

The company’s on-demand liquidity service uses XRP as a kind of “bridge” between currencies, which it says allows payment providers and banks to process cross-border transactions much faster than they would over legacy payment rails.

But Ripple also operates a blockchain-based international messaging system called RippleNet to facilitate massive transfers of funds between banks and other financial institutions, similar to the global interbank messaging system SWIFT.

The more countries that the XRP ecosystem is able to support, the closer it it gets to becoming an international payment system that could rival SWIFT.

It is impressive that so much progress has been possible over the past couple of years despite the ongoing lawsuit with the SEC.

The company also mentioned that Singapore happens to be one of the largest currency corridors so this recent approval to get a license has been a critical success.

With this, Ripple has also doubled its headcount in Singapore over the past year which indicates that Singapore will be a key hub for crypto innovation.

DeCrypto.co concludes:

“Singapore is a leading global financial center, and a prominent gateway to business in Asia Pacific,” said Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse.

“We’re incredibly proud to receive an in-principle license from the MAS, reaffirming our commitment to the region and ongoing proactive engagement with regulators globally.”

Ripple has operated its Asia-Pacific headquarters out of Singapore since 2017.

In a separate post on the company’s website, Ripple said its payments solution had experienced massive growth in 2022, and that it had doubled the headcount at the Singapore office as a result.

The firm is the latest in a recent string of crypto companies to have obtained the license, with Circle and Crypto.com both receiving approval earlier this month.

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