XRP News: Meritz Securities Signs Ripple to Review Custody and Tokenization for Korean Capital Markets

HIGHLIGHTS Meritz Securities, a top South Korean brokerage, signed a strategic deal with Ripple to apply Ripple Custody and tokenization to Korea’s capital markets. The timing is driven by Korea’s tokenized-securities rules taking effect February 4, 2027, as both firms position infrastructure ahead of the deadline. The pact is a review, not a product launch, no XRP, RLUSD, or XRPL role has been confirmed by either side. Meritz Securities, one of South Korea’s leading brokerages, has signed a strategic partnership with Ripple to explore how Ripple Custody and Ripple’s tokenization infrastructure can be applied to Korea’s capital markets.

The two firms formalized the agreement at Meritz’s Yeouido headquarters in Seoul, with Meritz CEO Jang Won-jae and Ripple President Monica Long in attendance. Meritz disclosed the deal on October 7, 2026.
Korea’s 2027 Tokenized-Securities Rules Drive the Timing
South Korea’s tokenized-securities amendments are scheduled to take effect on February 4, 2027.

That deadline is why both firms are moving now. They want infrastructure in place before the rules widen commercial possibilities.

The partnership is framed as a review, not a product launch. Both sides plan to work within existing securities regulations first. Broader cooperation will follow as Korea’s digital-asset rules evolve.

This move fits a broader pattern. Ripple Custody went live at Garanti BBVA in Turkey, pairing custody with RLUSD rails, a template Meritz could mirror in Korea as local rules open up.

Meritz is already reviewing a wide range of digital-asset services.

Those include spot digital-asset ETFs, fractional investment products, security token offerings (STOs), digital-asset trading platforms, and won-denominated stablecoins. The Ripple pact provides the custody and tokenization backbone those lines may eventually run on.

Korea’s institutional tokenization pipeline is growing fast. Securitize and LG CNS recently partnered on tokenized assets and stablecoins in the same market.

Separately, SBI and Kyobo completed a direct Japan-Korea stablecoin transfer pilot, a cross-border use case Ripple is already part of. Meritz now becomes another node in that growing network.

Fiona Murray, Ripple’s Asia-Pacific managing director, noted that Ripple would explore how its digital-asset infrastructure can support Korea’s capital markets.

No specific product, customer segment, or settlement asset, XRP, RLUSD, or XRPL, has been confirmed by either side.
Ripple’s Custody-First Expansion Strategy Takes Hold in Asia
The Meritz deal follows Ripple’s established playbook: enter with custody, then layer on broader services as regulations permit.

South Africa’s Absa CIB rolled out bank-backed crypto custody powered by Ripple, another instance of an institutional custodian anchoring the relationship before any retail product goes live.

On the tokenization infrastructure side, Ripple’s partnership with SettleMint to boost tokenization adoption in TradFi signals how serious the firm is about positioning itself as the rails for regulated securities globally. Meritz appears to be next in line.

Ripple’s institutional reach has also expanded on the prime brokerage front. Ripple expanded its partnership with Brevan Howard for prime brokerage services, reinforcing its position as a multi-product institutional counterparty.

That depth of relationships strengthens the case for Meritz choosing Ripple as its partner of record.

XRP briefly outpaced Bitcoin in 24-hour trading volume on Upbit around the announcement window, roughly $111 million against approximately $105 million, per local reporting. However, the partnership itself does not specify an XRP role.

Paxos recently rolled out XRP offerings for brokerage partners, adding weight to the token’s institutional momentum. Meanwhile, Evernorth’s XRPN Nasdaq debut was pushed to October 12 after an administrative delay, another signal of the broadening XRP treasury narrative that runs alongside deals like Meritz.