Brevan Howard has signed on to use Ripple Prime, the prime brokerage arm of Ripple, for multi-asset brokerage, clearing and financing. The hedge fund will route its trading operations through the platform, extending a relationship that started when Ripple invested in Brevan Howard.
The deal gives Brevan Howard access to a brokerage stack that handles multiple asset classes under one roof. It also deepens Ripple's push into institutional trading infrastructure, well beyond the cross-border payments business it built its name on.
What Ripple Prime brings to the table
Ripple Prime runs prime brokerage services: clearing trades, financing positions, and acting as a middleman between the fund and the wider market. For a macro-focused firm like Brevan Howard, that means one counterparty for settlement and funding across asset types — not a patchwork of brokers for each market.
The arrangement is straightforward on paper. Ripple Prime provides the plumbing; Brevan Howard uses it to execute and clear. No new entities, no newly named executives, no dollar figures attached to the agreement.
The relationship didn't start here
Brevan Howard and Ripple go back further than this brokerage agreement. Ripple invested in Brevan Howard at an earlier stage, which makes the new deal less a cold start and more an extension of an existing financial link.
That history matters because prime brokerage is a trust business. Funds don't hand clearing and financing to a counterparty they've never worked with. The prior investment gave both sides a reason to keep talking, and now the operational relationship has expanded into Brevan Howard's trading stack.
Why a hedge fund would make this move
Brevan Howard is known for global macro strategies — rates, currencies, and cross-asset positioning. Multi-asset clearing and financing are core utilities for that kind of trading. Instead of negotiating separate arrangements for each leg of a trade, the fund can consolidate under Ripple Prime.
For Ripple, landing a fund of Brevan Howard's profile is a reference point. Prime brokerage clients tend to be sticky: once a fund's clearing and financing flows through a platform, switching costs are real. The revenue is recurring in a way that payments volume isn't.
What isn't known yet
There's no timeline for when Brevan Howard's operations will be fully live on Ripple Prime, and no public disclosure of how much flow will move through the platform. The companies haven't said whether the agreement covers all of Brevan Howard's trading desks or a subset.
Ripple also hasn't announced other funds signing up for the same service. One institutional client doesn't make a franchise, but it does give Ripple Prime something to point to when it pitches the next fund.
What comes next depends on execution. Brevan Howard's trading desks will either find the platform smooth or they won't, and that verdict will travel through the prime brokerage world faster than any announcement.
