Ripple on Tuesday announced an agreement to acquire Standard Custody and Trust Company, a New York-based digital asset platform.
The acquisition still has to go through the regulatory approval process, but once the deal is complete, Ripple will be the sole shareholder, a spokesperson told The Block. Ripple will use Standard Custody’s limited purpose trust charter and funds transfer license to strengthen its regulatory license portfolio.
“What Standard Custody brings to the portfolio here is another significant set of licenses, which includes a trust license in the U.S.,” Ripple President Monica Long told The Block in an interview. “To be able to provide the technical components to financial institutions that want to use blockchain for all types of decentralized financial services, we also need the compliance part,” she said. “So these licenses are key to being able to provide the full purpose. End solution.”
“The trust license adds to our portfolio, which includes a suite of MTL or multiple money transfer licenses in the United States,” Long added. “In addition to the licenses we are seeking in the UK and Europe, we have also obtained an MPI license in Singapore.”
Standard Custody provides digital asset custody, escrow, and settlement services for institutional clients. The Block previously reported that the company was one of the first digital asset companies to receive approval for a new application for a New York trust license in May 2021.
Ripple’s expansion
Ripple is growing its European management team and working with customers across five continents, according to a company spokesperson. Public clients include HSBC, DekaBank, VP Bank and Germany’s DZ Bank, and it maintains relationships with Société Générale, BBVA Switzerland, DBS and Zodia Custody.
Standard Custody, a subsidiary of digital asset infrastructure company PolySign, raised $53 million in Series C funding in June 2022, The Block previously reported.
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