Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, speaks during the CoinDesk 2022 Consensus Festival in Austin, Texas, U.S., Saturday, June 11, 2022.
Jordan Vonderhaar | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Blockchain company Ripple said on Thursday it has received in-principle regulatory approval to operate in Singapore, in a rare moment of good news for the global cryptocurrency industry as it faces tightening policies at home in the United States.
Ripple said it had been granted in-principle approval for a major payment institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the country’s central bank.
The license will allow Ripple to offer regulated digital payment token products and services and expand cross-border transfers of XRP, a cryptocurrency with which the company is closely associated, among its customers, which are banks and financial institutions.
XRP was trading around 50 cents late Wednesday.
Ripple, a San Francisco-based fintech company, is best known for XRP as well as interbank messaging services based on blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins many cryptocurrencies.
The company’s on-demand liquidity service uses XRP as a kind of “bridge” between currencies that it says allows payment providers and banks to process cross-border transactions much faster than they would through legacy payment rails.
But Ripple also operates an international blockchain-based messaging system called RippleNet that facilitates massive transfers of funds between banks and other financial institutions, similar to the SWIFT global interbank messaging system.
Securities and Exchange Commission charged Rippleco-founder Christian Larsen and CEO Brad Garlinghouse with conducting an illegal securities offering that raised more than $1.3 billion by selling XRP.
Ripple denies the SEC’s allegations, arguing that XRP is a currency rather than a security that would be subject to strict rules.
Singapore is one of the largest currency corridors from which Ripple sends money across borders using XRP, the company said in a press release.
Most of Ripple’s global on-demand liquidity transactions go through Singapore, which serves as the company’s regional Asia-Pacific headquarters, Ripple said.
Ripple has doubled its headcount in Singapore over the past year across key functions, including business development, compliance and finance, and plans to continue to strengthen its presence there.
MAS, Singapore’s financial regulator, was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
The central bank was previously in the news for blasting Three Arrows Capital, the disgraced crypto hedge fund that collapsed after betting billions on the failed terraUSD stablecoin, for providing misleading information about its relocation to the British Virgin Islands in 2021.
The Asian megacity has gained a reputation as a more fintech and crypto-friendly jurisdiction over the years, opening its doors to a number of major companies, including homegrown banking giant DBS, British fintech firm Revolut and Singapore-based crypto exchange Crypto. com.
Garlinghouse is scheduled to speak at the Point Zero Forum in Zurich, Switzerland next Wednesday, where he will “discuss reviving innovation in digital assets through investment and thoughtful regulation,” the company said.
It comes on the heels of Ripple’s Purchase of Metaco for $250 millioncrypto custody services company to expand its reach in the Swiss market and diversify outside its home in the US Recently, Ripple’s Garlinghouse reported that the company will spend more than $200 million in legal fees as the legal battle with the SEC is wrapped up.