Key Takeaways:
- Ripple also signed an agreement with Meritz Securities, making it its 4th institutional deal in Korea this year.
- The companies will examine the infrastructure of Ripple Custody, along with tokenization for the capital markets in Korea.
- With over 85 licenses in more than 60 markets, Ripple now has 12 Korean banking, insurance and securities licenses that it serves.
Ripple is also beefing up its institutional footprint in South Korea with a fresh collaboration with Meritz Securities, a major South Korea security company. It is Ripple’s first capital markets deal with a Korean securities company.
Ripple and Meritz Target Tokenized Capital Markets
As part of the partnership, Meritz Securities has proposed the trial of the deployment of Ripple Custody and Ripple’s tokenization platform in its current securities business. Ripple Custody is intended for regulated financial institutions which require safer and more reliable infrastructure to secure them and move them.
Instead, Meritz would not have to develop the institutional stack from scratch, and could instead utilize the current institutional stack in order to serve Korea’s regulations.
The two companies are due to start in the scope of Meritz’s business to expand the partnership gradually in line with the progress of the digital asset framework in the country.
Read More: Ripple and Privy Bring XRP Wallets to XRPL After $1T Moved Across 8M Accounts
Meritz Explores ETFs, Security Tokens and KRW Stablecoins
Meritz is already looking at several digital asset business plans, such as spot ETFs, fractional investment, security tokens, digital asset trading platforms and stablecoins denominated in the Korean won.
This is a bigger picture plan, and the Ripple partnership is part of that. It, however, doesn’t indicate a production date or tokenized asset, nor does it confirm that any of those will roll out immediately on the Ripple infrastructure.
Ripple Expands Across Korea’s Financial Sector
Ripple’s partnership with Meritz is the fourth institutional one in Korea this year. Kyobo Life Insurance is collaborating with Ripple Custody on a project related to tokenization of Korean government bond settlement.
To utilize digital asset wallet infrastructure, Kbank is taking advantage of Ripple Custody’s service, while Jeonbuk Bank is utilizing Ripple Payments for cross-border remittances. This results in Ripple connections throughout three key sectors of Korea’s financial sector: banking, insurance and capital markets.
It has over 85 regulatory licenses and registrations in more than 60 markets around the world, said Ripple.
Read More: Ripple Taps DriveWealth to Bring RLUSD Settlement to 100+ Global Investing Partners
XRP Role Remains Undisclosed
The partnership will further enhance Ripple’s enterprise footprint, though Meritz does not announce that it will be issuing tokens directly on the XRP Ledger or that it will utilize XRP. Ripple Custody is able to power digital asset institutional operations without reliance on XRP.
Once a tokenized security or a stablecoin is issued on XRPL using XRP, XRP can be utilised for fees and account reserve payments on XRPL, however, it has not been confirmed.
As of yet, the agreement focuses on the custody and tokenization infrastructure, while the specific products and the blockchain architecture will rely on regulatory developments and Meritz’s ultimate decisions on which products to implement.
