Absa Brings Bank-Grade Standards to Digital Asset Administration
South Africa's Absa Group has launched a regulated digital asset custody service in partnership with Ripple. The service, branded Absa Digital Asset Custody, is aimed at corporate clients and institutional asset managers and runs on infrastructure supplied by Ripple. This move brings bank-grade standards to digital asset administration across the continent, according to Reece Merrick, Ripple's managing director for the Middle East and Africa.
The platform supports tokenized real-world assets alongside established cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and XRP. It steers clear of trading and lending, serving purely as a safekeeping venue. Absa oversees more than 2.07 trillion South African rand in assets but has yet to publish a full fee schedule or name pilot customers.
On the protocol side, the XRP Ledger Foundation has released version 3.4.0 of the core xrpld software for validator approval. The update includes new functional extensions for the decentralized network and centers on expanding the network's Single Asset Vaults with closed vaults and cash-basis accounting.