Ripple has secured a significant regulatory boost in Asia Pacific, after the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) approved an expanded scope of payment activities for the Major Payment Institution (MPI) license held by its local subsidiary, Ripple Markets APAC Pte. Ltd.
Announced on December 1, the decision allows the company to broaden the range of regulated payment services it can provide from Singapore, positioning the city-state even more clearly as the company’s core operational hub in the region. Ripple described the move as enabling “end-to-end, fully licensed payment services” for customers rather than a narrow set of functions, underscoring the strategic weight of the upgrade.
MAS Hands Ripple A Major Boost
The company framed the approval as validation of its long-running “regulation-first” posture. President Monica Long directly credited Singapore’s approach to digital asset oversight as a differentiator, saying:
“MAS has set a leading standard for regulatory clarity in digital assets, and we deeply value Singapore’s forward-thinking approach. Ripple has always taken a regulation-first approach and Singapore is proof that innovation thrives when rules are clear. This expanded license strengthens our ability to continue investing in Singapore and to build the infrastructure financial institutions need to move money efficiently, quickly, and safely.”
Under the new scope, Ripple can deploy a wider suite of services via Ripple Payments, its enterprise payments platform that uses digital payment tokens and a global payout network to support cross-border transfers and fiat on/off ramps. The product is pitched squarely at banks, crypto firms and fintechs that want access to token-based settlement without having to build their own infrastructure stack or manage the operational complexity of blockchain in-house.
Ripple Payments uses digital payment tokens (DPTs), “such as RLUSD and XRP,” to settle transactions within minutes, while the company itself handles collection, holding, swapping and payout through a single integration. The company emphasizes that clients can choose whether or not to hold DPTs directly, with Ripple’s infrastructure designed to eliminate the need for separate banking relationships, specialized infrastructure or direct digital asset management.
With MAS’ expanded approval, those capabilities can now be delivered from Singapore as fully regulated payment services, rather than as a patchwork of individual components. That gives institutional clients a clearer compliance profile when using token-based settlement rails, with both the digital asset and fiat legs sitting inside a single supervisory framework.
Fiona Murray, Ripple’s vice president and managing director for Asia Pacific, anchored the announcement in regional fundamentals, citing robust on-chain growth as the main demand driver.
“The Asia Pacific region leads the world in real digital asset usage, with on-chain activity up roughly 70% year-over-year. Singapore sits at the center of that growth,” she said. “With this expanded scope of payment activities, we can better support the institutions driving that growth by offering a broad suite of regulated payment services, bringing faster, more efficient payments to our customers.”
Singapore has been central to Ripple’s strategy since it established its APAC headquarters there in 2017. The company is now highlighting its status as one of the relatively few “blockchain-enabled institutions” globally to operate with an MPI license, using that status as a signal of both regulatory maturity and institutional readiness.
Beyond Ripple Payments, the firm continues to position itself as a broader crypto infrastructure provider. It offers custody for digital asset storage and management, and Ripple Prime as a multi-asset prime brokerage for institutional clients, with its stablecoin RLUSD and the XRP cryptocurrency integrated across these services to make “traditional finance more efficient and enable new ways to utilize digital assets.”
At press time, XRP traded at $2.05.
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