Ripple Highlights Custody Services as 37 Banks Prepare Euro Stablecoin

Ripple on Nov. 9 drew attention to its custody offerings as it outlined the requirements banks face in safeguarding assets for Qivalis' planned euro stablecoin. The company pointed to existing clients such as BBVA and DZ BANK while describing how lenders must protect customer holdings, enforce operational controls, and connect digital assets with their existing systems. Ripple positioned those capabilities within a broader suite of services spanning issuance, custody, governance, settlement, and redemption. Because Qivalis intends to distribute its token through member banks, those custody requirements sit at the center of the venture: each participating institution must decide how customer holdings are safeguarded before the coin reaches them.

Cassie Craddock, Ripple's vice president and managing director, stated: “Now that the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA) is established across Europe, the region's banks are emboldened to launch the digital asset offerings that their customers are asking for.”

How Ripple's Custody Model Works

According to Ripple, individual banks may either retain custody themselves or delegate it to another provider. The company's technology connects with banking software through application programming interfaces (APIs), which allow systems to exchange data and instructions. Software-defined policies — rules enforced by software — govern access, approvals, separation of duties, and jurisdictional controls. These integration points matter for the rollout because Qivalis' distribution is set to run through banks and payment providers, each of which needs a way to hold the token on customers' behalf within systems it already operates.

BBVA and DZ BANK Illustrate Different Custody Uses

Under its custody agreement with Ripple, BBVA has offered bitcoin and ether services to retail customers in Spain. Ripple said the bank retained control of its cryptographic keys and responsibility for protecting client assets. That relationship also extends to custody operations in Switzerland and Turkey.

DZ BANK, the central institution of a German cooperative banking group, selected the custody platform of Metaco, a Swiss custody technology provider acquired by Ripple in 2023. The German bank sought to handle crypto securities under the country's Electronic Securities Act within established capital-market processes.

Ripple's Nov. 9 assessment described integration with DZ BANK's existing asset-management and custody operations. One early application involved a Siemens tokenized bond held by DZ BANK and Union Investment, a German asset manager. Taken together, the examples covered retail crypto holdings and institutional securities, illustrating distinct uses for Ripple's technology — spanning the customer-facing and institutional sides of the digital asset offerings European banks are now building.

Qivalis Prepares Issuance Following Dutch Authorization

Qivalis, an Amsterdam-based joint venture, has grown to 37 member banks across 15 countries after adding 25 institutions in May. Participants include ING, BNP Paribas, BBVA, and DZ BANK. Its planned token is intended to support payments, settlement, and tokenized assets — digital representations of assets recorded on a blockchain. The euro focus distinguishes the project in a stablecoin market where the largest tokens by circulation are dollar-denominated.

De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Dutch central bank, granted Qivalis authorization as an electronic money institution. DNB's register of authorized activities lists issuance, distribution, and redemption permissions effective Oct. 13, placing the venture under ongoing supervision by the central bank.

Qivalis plans a full-reserve stablecoin model in which each token is backed 1:1 by reserves. The venture would handle issuance and redemption under its own authorizations and technology, while individual member institutions determine their customer custody arrangements, including whether to retain custody in-house or use another provider. That structure mirrors MiCA's requirements for stablecoin issuers: authorization from a supervisor and reserve backing for every token in circulation.

In its Oct. 14 announcement, Qivalis outlined plans to issue the stablecoin within the following months, subject to applicable Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation requirements and publication of its white paper. Distribution is set to run through eligible banks, exchanges, payment providers, and financial market infrastructure participants. From here, the steps to watch are the white paper's publication and the start of issuance, along with how member banks ultimately arrange custody for their customers.