Ripple Gains In-Principle Payments License in Singapore

Blockchain payments firm Ripple has been granted an in-principle approval on its license application by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), in a move the company said deepened its commitment in the Asia-Pacific region.

The preliminary approval of the Major Payments Institution License application will give Ripple the ability to offer regulated digital payment token products and services in the republic, the company said in a press release on Tuesday.

“Singapore is a leading global financial center, and a prominent gateway to business in Asia Pacific,” said Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse. “We’re incredibly proud to receive an in-principle license from the MAS, reaffirming our commitment to the region and ongoing proactive engagement with regulators globally.”

Ripple has operated its Asia-Pacific headquarters out of Singapore since 2017. In a separate post on the company’s website, Ripple said its payments solution had experienced massive growth in 2022, and that it had doubled the headcount at the Singapore office as a result.

Singapore a ‘global leader’ on crypto rules

The firm is the latest in a recent string of crypto companies to have obtained the license, with Circle and Crypto.com both receiving approval earlier this month.

But the number of businesses which have received the nod to operate digital payment token services in Singapore still stands at fewer than 20.

Singapore Tests Institutional DeFi on Ethereum, Welcomes USDC Issuer

The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) decentralized finance pilot program just executed “the first real-world use case for institutional-grade DeFi protocols,” Aave founder Stani Kulechov told Decrypt.  J.P. Morgan, DBS Bank and SBI Digital Asset Holdings yesterday used the Aave protocol on Polygon—a layer-2 scaling solution—to complete foreign exchange and government bond transactions on the Ethereum network. The banks exchanged tokenized versions of Singapore government securities bonds...

At the same time as it embraces more crypto businesses, the MAS is moving forward with its own plans for a programmable digital money. In a whitepaper published on Wednesday, the regulator set out more details of how its idea for Purpose Bound Money (PBM) would work, enabling senders of digital money to specify conditions when making transfers across different systems.

Garlinghouse praised the authority on Thursday, saying it was “a global leader in establishing clear rules of the road to recognise the innovation and real-world utility of digital assets”.

Stu Alderoty, Ripple’s chief legal officer, said that Singapore’s “early leadership” had set an example for other countries in how to regulate crypto.