Ripple expands African footprint through strategic partnership with Absa Bank

Ripple’s global custodial network now spans multiple continents, with Absa becoming its first major institutional partner in Africa.

Ripple has announced a strategic partnership with South Africa’s Absa Bank. Under the agreement, Absa will integrate Ripple’s custody technology to manage tokenized assets, including cryptocurrencies.

The partnership will give Absa access to Ripple’s institutional-grade technology, furthering Ripple’s broader mission to integrate digital assets into mainstream financial operations across Africa.

Custody of institutional digital assets

The latest development marks Ripple’s first major custody partnership in Africa and comes amid growing demand for compliant digital asset solutions among financial institutions in emerging markets.

The partnership strengthens the San Francisco-based company’s footprint on the African continent, building on previous efforts such as supporting Africa-focused payments platform Chipper Cash with crypto-enabled payment tools and facilitating the launch of the US dollar-denominated stablecoin RLUSD in the region.

Robin Lawson, Head of Digital Product Custody at Absa Corporate and Investment Banking, said in a public statement:

“As we continue to innovate and respond to the evolving financial ecosystem, we recognize the importance of providing our customers with secure, compliant, and robust custody solutions for their digital assets. Ripple’s custody solutions allow us to leverage proven, trusted technology that meets the highest security and operational standards. Together, we can deliver the next generation of financial infrastructure to our customers.”

The company’s global custodian network currently spans Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Africa, serving financial institutions navigating the blockchain and tokenized asset landscape.

Ripple’s 2025 New Value Report reveals that 64% of financial leaders in the Middle East and Africa cite faster payment and settlement times as a key factor in adopting blockchain-based currencies for cross-border transactions.

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Other major developments

The move follows last week’s partnership between Ripple and Bahrain Fintech Bay to promote Bahrain’s digital asset ecosystem. The main objective behind this is to focus on developing proof-of-concept and pilot projects in blockchain, cross-border payments, digital assets, stablecoins, and tokenization. Ripple and BFB also plan to foster knowledge initiatives through educational programs and accelerators, while actively participating in regional ecosystem events.

According to reports crypto potato Previously, Ripple partnered with Immunefi to strengthen the security of the XRPL lending protocol and launched a global “attackathon” with a total prize pool of $200,000. Top Web3 security researchers were invited to identify vulnerabilities prior to voting by the protocol’s verifiers. The initiative also offers targeted XRPL training through the Attackathon Academy.