Ripple Expands Scope of Payment Activities in Singapore

The Ripple announced today, December 1, that the company has received the Singapore central bank’s approval to expand its payment systems in the country. According to the official announcement, the green signal from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will enable Ripple’s Singapore subsidiary, Ripple Markets APAC Pte. Ltd (RMA) to do more types of regulated payment activities under its existing Major Payment Institution (MPI) license. 

Commenting on the achievement, Monica Long, the President of Ripple, stated that MAS had set a leading standard for regulatory clarity in digital assets and that they deeply valued Singapore’s forward-thinking approach. She further mentioned that Ripple had always taken a regulation-first approach and that Singapore was proof that innovation thrived when rules were clear. She added that the expanded license strengthened their ability to continue investing in Singapore and to build the infrastructure that financial institutions needed to move money efficiently, quickly, and safely.

Ripple’s Expanding Footprints 

Singapore has been part of Ripple’s strategic expansion since 2017. The company established its Asia Pacific headquarters back in 2017 and got an MPI license in 2023. The latest development will further enable the company to expand its services beyond the

token-related activities stipulated under the MPI licence. According to Fiona Murray, the Vice President and Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Ripple, the Asia Pacific region leads the world in real digital asset usage. The on-chain activity had shown over a 70% increase from the previous year in the region, and Singapore is pivotal to that growth. 

Before the central bank’s approval from Singapore, the company’s USD-backed stablecoin Ripple USD (RLUSD) had secured recognition as an Accepted Fiat-Referenced Token from Abu Dhabi’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) on November 27. The recognition expands the institutional use cases of the token in the region. The expanding footprints of the prominent crypto firms such as Ripple are a testimony to the institutional interest in digital currencies and payment architectures. The company is aggressively promoting its technology, especially for investment-grade cross-border payments. Despite the positive news from the Ripple ecosystem, the platform’s native token XRP is in the red today.

The XRP Plunges Despite Ripple’s Singaporean Expansion

XRP is currently trading at around $2.01; the token has decreased by 6.76% in the past 24 hours.

The market cap touched $123.1 billion. The Ripple’s expansion in Singapore is overshadowed by the macro headwinds and crypto market-wide sell-offs. The key reasons for the current price plunge of the token include the security breach on Yearn Finance, the changing monetary policy shifts in Japan, ETF profit taking and technical breakdown. The XRP failed to hold $2.2 support level and traders are now closely watching whether deeper corrections follow. Even so, XRP’s parent company’s expansions and strategic partnerships are anticipated to bring more institutional adoption of the XRP and RLUSD. Thus, paving the way for mainstream adoption.