Ripple is making its enterprise-grade, USD-backed stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD), available to institutions in Africa through partnerships with Chipper Cash, VALR, and Yellow Card.

RLUSD was designed with an emphasis on trust, utility, and compliance and is supported by Ripple’s experience in both crypto and traditional finance.

Since its launch in late 2024, RLUSD has reached a market capitalisation exceeding US$700 million, reflecting growing adoption of a compliance-first USD-backed stablecoin.

RLUSD combines stablecoin functionality with regulatory oversight, supported by the credibility of an NYDFS-issued New York limited purpose trust company, highlighting Ripple’s approach to trust and transparency in digital assets.

“RLUSD has quickly become established in enterprise financial use cases, from payments to tokenisation to collateral in both crypto and traditional trading markets. We’re seeing demand for RLUSD from our customers and other key institutional players globally and are excited to now begin distribution in Africa through our local partners,”

said Jack McDonald, SVP of Stablecoins at Ripple.

“We also recently enabled RLUSD in Ripple Payments, extending the breadth of stablecoins available in our cross-border payments solution to better serve our customers in Africa and worldwide.”

“After establishing our partnership with Ripple earlier this year to support faster, cheaper, more efficient cross-border payments into Africa, we were keen to make RLUSD available to our clients as soon as possible,”

said Ham Serunjogi, Co-Founder and CEO of Chipper Cash.

“RLUSD is uniquely positioned to drive institutional use of blockchain technology across Africa and broader global markets, including through cross-border payments.”

RLUSD can be used in a variety of enterprise financial applications, including facilitating instant settlement of cross-border payments, accessing liquidity for remittance and treasury operations, integrating with decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols, bridging between fiat currencies and the crypto ecosystem, and providing collateral for trading tokenised real-world assets such as commodities, securities, and treasuries.

Beyond Africa, RLUSD is being used in pilot projects led by Mercy Corps Ventures in Kenya to support extreme weather event relief.

One project provides drought insurance for farmers, with funds held in escrow and released via smart contracts if satellite data indicates likely drought conditions.

A second pilot will use RLUSD to support parametric rainfall insurance during periods of extreme rainfall.

Ripple is working with partners globally to make RLUSD widely available.

Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Africa, based on image by Road Ahead via Unsplash