Ripple and Settlemint, a blockchain technology company specializing in digital asset lifecycle management, announced a strategic partnership on Sept. 1 to provide regulated financial institutions with an integrated platform for issuing, holding, and managing tokenized assets.
The deal connects Ripple Custody with Settlemint's Digital Asset Lifecycle Platform (DALP), enabling institutions to manage issuance, compliance, custody, settlement, and servicing through one governed system rather than assembling separate solutions from multiple vendors.
Addressing the Operational Divide
The combined offering targets a gap between safeguarding digital assets and managing them after issuance. DALP provides controls for issuance, compliance, settlement, and servicing, while Ripple Custody governs how institutions store and control the assets. According to the announcement, running those functions on a single platform removes the multi-vendor assembly and reconciliation gaps that arise when institutions operate across separate providers.
"Financial institutions across Asia Pacific are putting digital assets to work. They are asking how to do more without stitching together separate solutions for custody, issuance and governance," said Fiona Murray, Ripple's managing director for Asia Pacific.
Adam Popat, CEO of Settlemint, said: "Global capital markets are moving fully on-chain, and that shift only works when digital asset custody and lifecycle management operate as one system rather than two."
Custody as a Control Layer
Ripple Custody supplies the security, governance, and compliance infrastructure required to hold digital assets within an institutional environment. Ripple has expanded its custody capabilities through integrations with Securosys, Figment, Chainalysis, and Palisade, adding key-management, transaction-screening, wallet, and staking features designed for banks and regulated enterprises.
Settlemint extends that structure beyond asset protection by managing the processes surrounding a token throughout its existence. Real-world asset tokenization involves legal structuring, custody, compliance, distribution, servicing, and redemption, making token creation only one component of a regulated financial product.
Asia Rollout and Existing Projects
The partnership has begun offering the integrated system in Asia, with plans to extend the offering to other markets as institutional demand develops. Ripple already participates in live tokenization projects, including Aviva Investors' tokenized liquidity fund share class on the XRP Ledger, which combines blockchain-based ownership records with established regulatory, custody, and investor-protection structures.
Ripple's previous acquisition of Palisade, a digital asset custody and wallet provider, expanded its ability to support scalable wallet deployment and rapid transactions.
Market Context
The commercial opportunity extends beyond crypto trading into the infrastructure used to issue and service conventional financial assets. Boston Consulting Group estimates tokenized real-world assets could reach $88 trillion by 2035, representing roughly 16% of global investable assets under its progressive scenario. Under its rapid-expansion scenario, the firm projects bank profits could fall about 30% compared with a market without digital asset adoption.
