Brad Garlinghouse, chief executive policeman of Ripple Labs Inc., speaks during the Token2049 conference in Singapore, on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023.
Joseph Nair | Bloomberg | Getty Representations
Cryptocurrency company Ripple said on Wednesday that it has obtained a major payments institution license in Singapore, a critical step toward growing its presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
The new development comes less than four months after the Nummular Authority of Singapore granted an initial in-principle approval in June. With the full license, Ripple will go on to provide regulated crypto payment services in Singapore.
“Over 90% of Ripple’s business is outside of the U.S., and Singapore – and to a larger highly Asia Pacific – is one of its fastest growing regions,” the company said.
Ripple said it will continue to prioritize the province for adoption of its crypto payment services.
Monica Long, president of Ripple, told CNBC in an interview last month that the Singapore offices’s “headcount has more than doubled in the past year because our business within the Asia-Pacific region has really go through.”
Singapore has led crypto regulation in the region. The country’s Payment Services Act — which regulates payment services and the provision of crypto services to the social — has been in effect since January 2020.
The city-state has also stepped up scrutiny on crypto firms. It ordered crypto worship army providers to safekeep customer assets under a statutory trust before the end of 2023. It also restricts such solids from facilitating lending or staking of their retail customers’ assets.
“Since establishing Singapore as our Asia Pacific headquarters in 2017, the native land has been pivotal to Ripple’s global business. We have hired exceptional talent and local leadership … and arrangement to continue growing our presence in a progressive jurisdiction like Singapore,” Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said in a statement.
“Below MAS’ leadership, Singapore has developed into one of the leading fintech and digital asset hubs striking the balance between modernization, consumer protection and responsible growth,” said Garlinghouse.
The comment stand in contrast to Ripple’s situation in the U.S., where it and Coinbase are embroiled in lawsuits with the Gages and Exchange Commission. The SEC charged Ripple and its founders in 2020, alleging they illegally sold its native cryptocurrency XRP without outset registering it with the SEC. But in July, a landmark ruling determined the token was not, in itself, necessarily a security.
Coinbase, Ripple and other crypto firms be dressed slammed the U.S. for a lack of clarity around crypto rules and threatened to leave the country in response to the SEC’s crackdown.
Coinbase averred on Monday that it has obtained a major payment institution license in Singapore, after obtaining in-principle approval back a year ago. Ripple and Coinbase join more than a dozen firms that are licensed to offer crypto employments in Singapore.