Ripple Labs has extended its custody alliance with Garanti BBVA to offer XRP, BTC, and ETH to its users
By Godfrey Benjamin
Editor Julia Sakovich
Updated
2 mins read
Ripple Managing Director Reece Merrick took to X to announce an extension of the blockchain payment firm’s collaboration with Garanti BBVA, a Turkish financial institution. The latter intends to continue using Ripple’s institutional-grade custody technology to secure major crypto assets, including Bitcoin BTC $89 020 24h volatility: 1.0% Market cap: $1.78 T Vol. 24h: $39.79 B , Ethereum ETH $2 929 24h volatility: 2.1% Market cap: $353.32 B Vol. 24h: $23.39 B , and XRP XRP $1.91 24h volatility: 2.0% Market cap: $115.98 B Vol. 24h: $2.17 B .
In his X post, Merrick described Garanti BBVA Kripto as “our Turkish partner,” citing that the new deal is an extension of an existing relationship with Ripple Labs. By choosing to continue with Ripple’s custody technology, this banking giant is attesting to the vote of confidence that it has in the San Francisco-based blockchain payment company.
“This renewal is a massive vote of confidence in our joint vision for secure, compliant digital asset infrastructure,” Merrick wrote on X. He added that Garanti BBVA’s retail customers will continue to get access to secure transfers and storage for XRP, BTC and ETH, among other crypto assets.
Garanti BBVA made its foray into the crypto space in late 2024 after it undertook a pilot program with Ripple and IBM. It had about 14,000 early adopters at this initial stage. At the time, this collaboration was designed to enable the bank to securely build, deploy, and manage institutional-grade key management infrastructure.
This strategic deal gave the bank the avenue to offer services covering BTC, ETH, AVAX AVAX $12.16 24h volatility: 1.2% Market cap: $5.24 B Vol. 24h: $261.68 M , USDC, CHZ, XRP and SOL SOL $127.2 24h volatility: 2.2% Market cap: $71.99 B Vol. 24h: $3.67 B .
This saw the bank utilizing Ripple’s Metaco for key management and governance operations, backed by IBM’s hyper-secure LinuxONE servers. Therefore, this latest extension marks further expansion of Ripple’s acquisition of Metaco in 2023.
Apart from this GarantiBBVA Kripto deal, Ripple has achieved other milestones this year. Last week, it received a “Green Light Letter” from the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF).
This is a preliminary approval for an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license in Luxembourg. It added to its portfolio of over 75 global regulatory licenses.
The regulator has completed its legal review of the application but the license is yet to be fully authorized.
The company is still expected to fulfill specific operational requirements to receive final authorization. Once the full authorization is granted, Ripple gets “passporting” rights to offer services across the entire European Economic Area.
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Benjamin Godfrey is a blockchain enthusiast and journalist who relishes writing about the real life applications of blockchain technology and innovations to drive general acceptance and worldwide integration of the emerging technology. His desire to educate people about cryptocurrencies inspires his contributions to renowned blockchain media and sites.
