Absa Debuts Ripple-Powered Crypto Custody as XRP Ledger Weighs Lending Upgrade
Published on 09/22/2026 at 13:01 | Editorial boerse-global.de
South Africa's Absa Group has gone live with a regulated custody service for digital assets, formally activating a partnership with Ripple that was first struck in October 2025. The offering, branded Absa Digital Asset Custody, is aimed at corporate clients and institutional asset managers, and runs on infrastructure supplied by the crypto firm. Absa oversees more than 2.07 trillion South African rand in assets, though it has yet to publish a full fee schedule or name pilot customers. The platform steers clear of trading and lending, serving purely as a safekeeping venue, and supports tokenized real-world assets alongside established cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and XRP.
Reece Merrick, Ripple's managing director for the Middle East and Africa, framed the launch as bringing bank-grade standards to digital asset administration across the continent.
Validators Weigh Structured Credit
On the protocol side, the XRP Ledger Foundation has put version 3.4.0 of the core xrpld software out for validator approval, bundling new functional extensions for the decentralized network. The headline item is the Lending Protocol v1.1 ruleset, which would layer structured credit mechanisms onto the existing infrastructure. Two amendments go to a vote: LendingProtocolV1_1 and fixCleanup3_4_0, while the older fixAMMOverflowOffer proposal is dropped from the package.
The lending push centers on expanding the network's Single Asset Vaults, with closed vaults and cash-basis accounting on the agenda. Under the blueprint, those vaults would move through three fixed stages — subscription, investment and repayment. The software ships the technical groundwork but does not switch the features on by itself. Consensus rules require any protocol change to hold more than 80% approval from trusted validators across a continuous two-week window. In parallel, the Foundation has migrated software distribution to newly signed infrastructure, a shift that forces operators of older server versions to make adjustments.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying XRP?
Price Action and Chart Signals
XRP climbed 9.2% on the day to $1.54, leaving it 56% above its 52-week low. The advance comes despite the US Clarity Act failing in the Senate roughly a week ago; the market has added 8.2% since that vote. Ripple executives said immediately after the ballot that the outcome changes nothing about the company's operational status or demand.
Chartists are mapping fresh levels. Trader Peter Brandt published an analysis on Monday based on the long-term monthly chart, deriving a potential target of $5.40 while stressing it is a purely technical pattern reading rather than a trading recommendation. Nearer term, analyst Ali Martinez pointed to on-chain data showing roughly 2.5 billion XRP in heavier trading volume clustered around $1.60, a zone that could generate headwinds.
Network Health and ETF Flows
The underlying infrastructure has also settled down. David Schwartz, Ripple CTO Emeritus, reported on Friday that peer connections at his private hub had stabilized above the 500 mark, reaching 501 against a recent peak of 509, with noticeably fewer dropped connections.
Institutional appetite showed a softer patch. On Thursday, US spot XRP ETFs logged net outflows of $5.15 million, though cumulative inflows into those products remain at just under $1.71 billion. XRP last changed hands at $1.52, a modest 0.7% daily decline. Attention now turns to how validators vote on the new credit functions.
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