Ripple’s Monica Long says bank pilots are going live

Ripple President Monica Long said on Aug. 4 that financial institutions are moving tokenized assets “from bank pilots to production,” creating demand for the operational infrastructure needed to issue, manage and use regulated assets on public blockchains.

Long linked that shift to Ripple’s strategic investments in ZILO and Licuido, which the company announced one day earlier. Ripple said the two investments will add transfer agency, token issuance and collateral mobility tools to its capital markets infrastructure on the XRP Ledger. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Monica Long says bank tokenization has entered production

Long’s argument centers on the difference between testing blockchain technology and launching a regulated product that investors can actually use. Her Aug. 4 statement said Ripple was responding to institutions that now need infrastructure for the full lifecycle of tokenized assets, rather than another isolated proof of concept.

The clearest example is Aviva Investors’ tokenized share class of its U.S. Dollar Liquidity Fund, which launched on the XRP Ledger on July 29. It was Aviva Investors’ first tokenized fund product and followed a partnership with Ripple announced in February.

The Central Bank of Ireland approved the new share class. Eligible investors can access it through approved digital wallets, while BNY Mellon continues to hold the fund’s underlying assets. Komainu provided digital asset custody support, and Licuido supplied tokenization infrastructure.

As crypto.news previously reported, the tokenized structure retains the investment objective, liquidity terms and regulatory protections of the conventional fund. The blockchain token represents the investor’s fund interest, but the underlying short term debt instruments remain inside the regulated fund structure.

The Aviva launch supports Long’s claim that some institutional projects have entered production. However, it does not establish that banks or asset managers broadly have completed that transition. Ripple has not disclosed how many institutions are using its full capital markets stack or how much tokenized fund volume has settled through it.

ZILO and Licuido add missing operational layers

ZILO focuses on transfer agency and fund administration technology. Transfer agents maintain investor records, process subscriptions and redemptions, handle corporate actions and reconcile ownership data. Those duties remain necessary when a fund issues blockchain based share classes because the onchain record must match the legally recognized register of investors.

ZILO launched an integrated digital assets and transfer agency platform on Aug. 3 alongside its Ripple partnership. The company says its system can manage conventional fund units and tokenized assets through one platform, covering issuance, payments, settlement, reconciliation and reporting.

Ripple said the investment will help bring regulated record keeping into its XRP Ledger infrastructure. ZILO founder and CEO Phil Goffin said the funding would help the company add digital market functions without requiring institutions to abandon their existing operational controls. That remains a company plan rather than a confirmed measure of adoption or cost savings.

Licuido addresses issuance, distribution, secondary trading and collateral use. Its system is designed to let asset managers tokenize fund shares and allow eligible institutions to pledge those shares as collateral rather than selling them to raise cash.

Its regulatory position requires careful wording. Licuido Markets Limited is an appointed representative of Sapeno Partners LLP, which is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Licuido should therefore not be described as independently authorized by the FCA without that qualification.

Together, the investments give Ripple access to two different parts of the fund market. ZILO manages the ownership and administrative record. Licuido provides the issuance and market infrastructure intended to make tokenized holdings transferable and usable as collateral.

RLUSD is designed to settle tokenized fund trades

Ripple plans to use its dollar stablecoin, RLUSD, as the cash side of delivery versus payment transactions. Under that model, payment and the tokenized fund unit can settle together instead of moving through separate systems at different times.

The company says this structure can reduce settlement risk because one side of the transaction should not complete without the other. Ripple also wants tokenized fund units to become eligible for borrowing, lending and margin workflows soon after issuance.

Those functions are part of Ripple’s intended operating model. The company has not published transaction totals showing that RLUSD is already processing tokenized fund settlements at scale through ZILO or Licuido. It has also not identified institutions actively using the combined system for collateral transactions.

The broader XRP Ledger already hosts tokenized financial products and stablecoins. As crypto.news reported in its coverage of the Aviva launch, RWA.xyz showed $4.06 billion in represented assets and $313.3 million in distributed assets on the network as of July 29. The categories are tracked separately and should not be treated as one uniform pool of freely circulating onchain liquidity.

Ripple also works with Franklin Templeton and DBS on tokenized money market infrastructure. DBS listed Franklin Templeton’s sgBENJI token alongside RLUSD and planned to explore lending and repurchase transactions using tokenized fund units as collateral.

Ripple still needs volumes and additional fund launches

The investments broaden Ripple’s institutional offering, but several details remain unavailable. Ripple did not disclose the amount invested in either company, the resulting ownership stakes, revenue arrangements or the dates when the combined services will become available to more clients.

The companies have also not published settlement volumes, collateral values or the number of institutions using the new infrastructure. Long’s statement that institutions are moving into production reflects Ripple’s assessment of customer demand. Independent usage data will be needed to measure how widespread that shift has become.

The next measurable developments will include additional tokenized fund launches, named institutional customers and transaction data showing how often RLUSD is used for delivery versus payment. Investors will also be watching for evidence that fund tokens are being pledged in live lending, margin or repurchase transactions.

For ZILO, the next test is whether asset managers adopt its combined transfer agency and digital asset platform. For Licuido, attention will center on the launch and use of its collateral marketplace on the XRP Ledger.

Ripple’s investments therefore address practical gaps between creating a token and using it in regulated financial markets. Long’s comments frame the deals as a response to institutions leaving the pilot stage. Whether that transition reaches wider scale will depend on client onboarding, regulatory approvals and verified transaction activity.