Ripple is moving on two fronts to expand its stablecoin infrastructure, investing in African payments company Flutterwave while pursuing a crypto-asset service provider license in Luxembourg. The coordinated push aims to put RLUSD — Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin — into real payment flows across Europe and Africa.
The Flutterwave deal
Ripple participated in Flutterwave’s Series E round, which valued the company at $3.2 billion. The size of Ripple’s stake wasn’t disclosed, but the partnership goes beyond equity. Flutterwave plans to integrate RLUSD, Ripple Payments, and the XRP Ledger into its infrastructure. The stablecoin will act as a settlement asset inside Flutterwave’s payment network and its Send App remittance service.
Flutterwave connects businesses to cards, bank transfers, mobile wallets, and other local payment methods across Africa. Ripple’s managing director for the Middle East and Africa, Reece Merrick, said the investment puts RLUSD directly inside that infrastructure and directs stablecoin flows through the XRP Ledger.
The Luxembourg license
Separately, Ripple applied for a crypto-asset service provider license in Luxembourg. If granted, that license would give the company regulatory reach across the entire European Economic Area — 30 countries — under a single passport. It’s a key piece of Ripple’s plan to make RLUSD available to European businesses and users through regulated channels.
Why remittances matter
Sending $200 to sub-Saharan Africa costs about 9% of the transaction on average, according to the IMF citing World Bank data. That’s 50% more than the global average of roughly 6%. Nigeria alone received about $59 billion in crypto-asset inflows between July 2023 and June 2024, and the country has accounted for roughly 60% of stablecoin inflows into sub-Saharan Africa since 2019, per the IMF.
Flutterwave said its broader stablecoin infrastructure is already running commercially and being tested inside Send App. The idea is that using RLUSD instead of traditional rails could lower those remittance costs — but the companies haven’t said by how much.
What’s still unknown
No launch timetable has been given. There’s no word on expected transaction volume, projected savings for customers, or which payment corridors will go live first. The companies also haven’t explained how they plan to handle conversion between RLUSD and local currencies — a critical detail for any real-world stablecoin rollout.
Ripple has the pieces in place: an investment in a major payments platform, a regulatory application in Europe, and a stablecoin ready to plug in. The question now is how fast Flutterwave can actually put RLUSD to work — and whether the costs of sending money home will actually come down.
