Ripple and SettleMint announced a strategic partnership on Sept. 1 that combines institutional digital asset custody with tools for issuing and managing tokenized assets. The initial offering targets regulated financial institutions across Asia Pacific before possible expansion elsewhere globally.
The partnership integrates Ripple Custody with SettleMint’s Digital Asset Lifecycle Platform, known as DALP. According to the official announcement, the combined service is intended to give banks, financial market operators and other regulated institutions one foundation for custody, issuance, compliance, settlement and post-issuance servicing. Ripple Custody provides infrastructure for holding and transferring cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets, with configurable access controls, policy enforcement and approval workflows. The custody technology can be deployed as self-custody infrastructure, allowing institutions to retain control of their private keys.
SettleMint’s DALP covers issuance, compliance, custody coordination, settlement and servicing after a token launches. The companies said the arrangement could help institutions move from tests into production without assembling multiple disconnected products. However, the announcement did not disclose participating customers, implementation dates, pricing or transaction volumes. It also did not state which blockchain networks the joint service will support or require use of the XRP Ledger, XRP or Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin.
The SettleMint agreement follows several additions to Ripple Custody. Ripple acquired wallet and custody company Palisade in November 2025, then announced partnerships with Securosys and Figment in February, alongside a Chainalysis integration for transaction monitoring and compliance tools. SettleMint now adds a system for managing tokenized assets after issuance.
Ripple and SettleMint cited a Boston Consulting Group forecast from May 2026 estimating that tokenized real-world assets could reach $88 trillion by 2035 under its progressive scenario, equal to roughly 16% of global investable assets. The report also estimated publicly visible tokenized real-world assets were worth approximately $30 billion at the time. The next measurable development will be disclosure of participating financial institutions, supported networks and production deployments.
