Ripple soars in Asia Pacific

Singapore greenlights expansion

Blockchain-based digital payment company Ripple may not always endear itself to Western investors but its standing in the Asia Pacific region continues to impress.

Ripple enjoys a long-standing relationship with the region.

It established its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore as far back as 2017 and has gradually embedded itself in the city-state’s financial culture.

That process now appears to be gaining even greater momentum.

In late 2025, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) gave Ripple the go-ahead to broaden the scope of its payment offerings.

This falls under the company’s Major Payment Institutions (MPI) licence which it received in 2023.

This gave Ripple credibility in that it required the company to comply with anti-money laundering legislation as well as laws governing consumer protection and institutional monitoring.

Forward-thinking Ripple’s gain

The decision to offer Ripple greater scope for its payment solutions is considered significant.

The greenlight from MAS means that the company can up the ante in terms of offering token-based settlements in the form of its native XRP token or Ripple USD stablecoin to banks, fintech firms and crypto players in Singapore.

There is only a small group of blockchain-based entities that hold an MPI licence.

Ripple president Monica Long has praised MAS for its “regulatory clarity”, something the company has not always found in other markets.

She further hails the island nation as “forward-thinking”.

Asia Pacific is renowned as one of the world’s great digital asset adopters and Singapore has been at the centre of it all.

In a single year on-chain activity shot up by an incredible 70%.

This is not the only remarkable statistic.

Somewhere between 25% and 60% of Singaporeans own some form of cryptocurrency. Among Gen Zs and millennials, that percentage is even higher.

Lifting the restrictions

The expansion of Ripple’s powers, as it were, is the result of the removal of certain limitations that existed when it was first issued its MPI licence.

For instance, there was a restriction on end-to-end payment solutions needed by financial institutions.

Now that these limitations have been lifted, Ripple is free to meet the ever-increasing demand for these types of services.

It follows that the Ripple price has benefited from this change.

The expanded set of regulated payment services is now extensive.

Among the most significant is that the entire transaction flow can be offered, where previously only token-related transactions could occur.

For Singapore’s banks, fintech companies and cryptocurrency companies, this is a major and long-awaited coup.

Ripple can now also offer Singaporeans fiat-to-crypto on-ramps and off-ramps.

These describe the process in which fiat currencies like US dollars or euros can be exchanged for XRP and vice versa.

Cross-border remittances, or the international transfer of funds from one country to another, and enterprise-grade settlement tools are also part of the service suite.

Faster, better payments

Ripple Asia Pacific managing director Fiona Murray sums it up best when she says: “With this expanded scope of payment activities, we can better support the institutions driving that growth by offering a broad suite of regulated payment services, bringing faster, more efficient payments to our customers.”