Ripple is launching its USD-pegged stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD), across Africa. This is through partnerships with Chipper Cash, VALR, and Yellow Card. The stablecoin will make cross-border settlements on the continent faster, cheaper, and more reliable for financial institutions, businesses, and customers.
The company confirmed the launch in its statement to the press, noting Africa’s growing contribution to digital payments. Ripple clarified that RLUSD would be accessible to institutions and enterprises across the continent. The company explained the initiative as central to its overseas expansion strategy for regulated digital assets.
RLUSD was launched in the latter part of 2024, with rapid growth to a market cap greater than $700 million. Built with enterprise-grade functionality and full compliance, it has been widely adopted for paymenets, tokenizing, and collateralized trades. Africa has been identified by Ripple as the growth market for financial innovation.
Jack McDonald, Ripple’s Senior Vice President for Stablecoins, cited increasing demand for RLUSD.
“We’re seeing strong adoption for RLUSD in payments, tokenization, and collateralized trading,” he explained. “Expanding into Africa with local partners helps us meet the needs of one of the fastest-growing regions for digital payments,” he noted.
Partnerships driving adoption in Africa
Chipper Cash, Africa’s most popular fintech platform, has indeed committed to using RLUSD for speeding up cost-effective transfers. RLUSD helps lower the friction in cross-border transactions, according to Chipper Cash CEO Ham Serunjogi. He referred to RLUSD as the key tool for enabling Africa’s expanding digital economy and linking regional markets effortlessly.
Africa’s biggest crypto exchange, VALR, also pledged its support. Co-founder Farzam Ehsani said RLUSD will launch on its platform to strengthen trading and liquidity options. He emphasized the requirement for compliant crypto assets, again reaffirming the ways RLUSD supports VALR’s vision for transparent, safe, and regulated financial architecture for Africa.
Yellow Card has declared its contribution in the RLUSD integration to facilitate safe transactions. CEO Chris Maurice has emphasized that the need for digital assets that are stable and compliant is growing among customers.
He explained that RLUSD provides trusted solutions for treasury management and cross-border settlement solutions that, consequently, are the most efficient way of solving the problem of businesses and institutional clients in Africa.
Ripple raises $24M in RLUSD
The launch of Ripple in Africa is the company’s latest move after the successful implementation in Japan via SBI Holdings and in Europe under the Luxembourg MiCA regime.
Ripple supplemented an additional RLUSD 24 million, effectively raising the total amount released. These are the turning points that signal the company’s plan to bring its stablecoin in line with the globally regulated financial systems.
