Ripple plants its flag across the Middle East and Africa with four new institutional partnerships!

Ripple has secured institutional partnerships in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, South Africa, and Ghana, anchoring the expansion at its new regional headquarters inside the Dubai International Financial Centre. The DFSA license — granted in March 2025 — gives licensed firms within the DIFC a compliant path to XRP-powered On-Demand Liquidity rails, cutting out the correspondent banking stack entirely.

The Saudi deal with Jeel, Riyadh Bank's innovation arm, targets cross-border payments, digital asset custody, and tokenization under Vision 2030. Bahrain Fintech Bay adds stablecoin proofs of concept and RLUSD custody infrastructure, while the Absa Bank agreement in South Africa opens tokenized asset settlement at one of the continent's largest financial institutions. Around 20% of Ripple's global customer base already sits in the MEA region — this expansion doubles down on its most concentrated…