The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation adds XRP and RLUSD custody with Ripple

Institutional custody now extends to two more crypto assets, while a proposed route into invoice financing remains exploratory. The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation NYSEBNY, a New York financial services group, said on Oct. 27 that its digital custody platform now supports XRP and RLUSD.

The expansion deepens its relationship with Ripple, the blockchain payments and custody provider founded in 2012. BNY also intends to support more tokenized assets issued on the XRP Ledger and work with Ripple to let bank clients mint and redeem RLUSD directly.

BNY shares traded at US$147.31, up 0.09 per cent, at 9:47 a.m. EDT on Tuesday on the NYSE, according to NYSEBNY.

Tuesday's announcement gives no custody fees, client commitments or expected revenue from the expansion. The companies describe their proposed supply chain finance work as exploratory and subject to client requirements, separating the available custody service from the business they hope to build around it.

Token Custody Extends The Reserve Relationship

Ripple selected BNY as the primary custodian of RLUSD reserves on July 9, 2025. That agreement covered the assets backing the stablecoin and included Ripple's use of BNY transaction banking services.

Tuesday's expansion adds custody of the tokens themselves. Eligible institutional clients can safekeep, hold and transfer XRP and RLUSD through BNY's platform, which the bank says operates within its broader governance, controls and resiliency framework.

Ripple put RLUSD's market capitalization at approximately US$2.5 billion in the Oct. 27 announcement. That is the size of the stablecoin, rather than an amount BNY says it holds on its digital custody platform.

BNY reported US$63.4 trillion in assets under custody or administration as of Sept. 30. The release does not break out digital asset custody within that total, so the bank's overall scale provides no measure of the new service's existing client balances.

"With BNY, we're connecting the necessary components of financial infrastructure on the XRP Ledger so institutions can move from holding digital assets to using them within capital markets and trade finance seamlessly," Ripple president Monica Long said in the release.

The Oct. 27 statement places direct RLUSD minting and redemption among intended initiatives. It gives no start date for that capability or for expanded support of tokenized investment products issued on the ledger.

Invoice Financing Remains An Initiative

C2FO, a working capital platform that connects businesses with financing against approved invoices, is the proposed supply chain finance collaborator. In a separate Oct. 27 announcement with Ripple, it described plans to bring financing and settlement supporting its Instant Pay service onto the XRP Ledger.

That release says participating capital providers would fund instant payments, with RLUSD used for settlement. Suppliers would continue accessing early payment through C2FO, while the invoices' agreed terms and due dates would stay unchanged.

The companies say the arrangement could replace settlement delays of several days with receipt of funds in seconds. That is their description of the intended service; the Oct. 27 release directs interested businesses to a waitlist and provides no measured deployment results.

The two announcements also describe different stages of work. C2FO and Ripple outline the payment initiative, while BNY and Ripple say they are exploring a supply chain finance initiative with C2FO to expand investor access to trade finance assets.

BNY Is Adding Other Digital Asset Relationships

Galaxy Digital Inc. NASDAQGLXY, which operates digital asset trading, investment management and data centre businesses, reported a multiyear agreement with BNY in its Oct. 27 results. It includes support for staking on BNY's digital custody platform, with Galaxy also acting as a platform design partner.

Galaxy held US$812 million in stablecoins at Sept. 30, according to those results. The holdings form part of the liquidity discussed in Mugglehead's coverage of its third-quarter earnings; they do not establish that Galaxy holds RLUSD or uses the new Ripple custody service.

Read more: Galaxy Digital reports US$323M profit as Helios contribution grows

The proposed use of stablecoins for institutional settlement also faces a competing model. In a June 24, 2025 assessment, the Bank for International Settlements argued that stablecoins fall short on acceptance at par, timely discharge of obligations and safeguards against financial crime.

Hyun Song Shin, then the BIS's economic adviser and head of its Monetary and Economic Department, advocated integrating tokenized bank deposits and central bank settlement money on one programmable platform. That assessment predates this agreement and addresses stablecoins broadly, rather than BNY's custody controls or RLUSD specifically.

BNY's next scheduled financial update is its fourth-quarter results on Jan. 15, 2027. That provides the next dated reporting opportunity to assess the commercial contribution; the Oct. 27 announcement sets no delivery deadline for direct RLUSD minting or the proposed trade finance work.