Standard Chartered Bank announced Monday that its Dubai International Financial Centre branch now supports institutional custody of Ripple USD (RLUSD), the stablecoin issued on the XRP Ledger. The service is available through the bank's DIFC Branch, which is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority.
RLUSD is a stablecoin designed to maintain a value of $1, backed by dollars, U.S. government bonds, and cash equivalents. Ripple launched the token in December 2024 on both Ethereum and the XRP Ledger. Standard Chartered's custody service covers the XRP Ledger version.
The bank has also joined a planned integration with LMAX Group, a London-based marketplace for currencies and crypto, to make RLUSD eligible as collateral on LMAX products. Under an arrangement Standard Chartered calls collateral mirroring, the RLUSD tokens would remain at the bank while LMAX receives a mirrored record of their value for trading purposes. This structure ensures that a trader's collateral stays with Standard Chartered, one of 29 banks designated by the Financial Stability Board as too big to fail, rather than being held at an exchange.
The custody offering is currently live, though the LMAX integration remains pending. Standard Chartered said the trading collateral arrangement remains subject to final documentation, testing, and regulatory approvals, with no timeline provided for when clients will be able to post RLUSD as margin.
The Dubai regulator approved RLUSD in June 2025. Standard Chartered has offered cryptocurrency custody services in Dubai since 2024 and became the first global systemically important bank to enable institutions to mint and redeem Circle's USDC directly in July.
