Ripple is pushing deeper into South Korea. The company partnered with Jeonbuk Bank to deploy Ripple Payments for cross-border remittances, and it worked with Kyobo Life Insurance and KBank on blockchain and digital finance integration. The moves land alongside a $275 million private placement of senior unsecured notes issued by Ripple Prime, money earmarked for the company's US business.
Jeonbuk Bank signs on for Ripple Payments
Jeonbuk Bank will use Ripple Payments to speed up cross-border remittances. The bank is one of several South Korean institutions Ripple has been working with. Kyobo Life Insurance and KBank also collaborated with Ripple on digital finance and blockchain integration, though the companies didn't detail the exact scope of those projects.
South Korea has become a busy market for Ripple. The partnerships give the company a foothold in a country where remittance corridors and digital banking are both expanding. For Jeonbuk Bank, the deal is a way to offer faster transfers without building the infrastructure from scratch.
The $275 million raise
Ripple raised the capital through Ripple Prime, which issued senior unsecured notes to a diverse group of institutional investors across key financial markets. The proceeds will go toward working capital and general corporate purposes inside a regulated entity.
The size stands out. $275 million in private notes is a meaningful chunk of capital, and the fact that it was placed with institutions rather than a single backer suggests broad appetite. Ripple has leaned on private placements before to fund operations without tapping public markets.
Wall Street firms get XRP exposure via ETFs
A handful of big names now hold XRP exposure through spot ETFs. Jane Street Group, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Wolverine Asset Management, Gallagher Capital Management, Main Street Group, and National Bank of Canada have all gained exposure that way.
The ETFs themselves ended last week in the green, though inflows were modest — just over $2 million. Net inflows hit $5.81 million on August 19. The numbers suggest institutional interest is real but not exactly feverish.
XRP below $1.00, whales keep buying
XRP dipped below $1.00 for the first time in nearly two years. It hasn't been able to reclaim that level even as Bitcoin pushed back above $64,000.
The on-chain picture tells a different story. Daily active addresses on the XRP network topped 35,500 in August. The number of whales holding at least a million XRP rose by 32 over three months. And in a 24-hour stretch last week, whales accumulated 72 million XRP tokens.
That divergence — price lagging while accumulation continues — is the kind of thing traders tend to watch. Whether the whale buying translates into a move back above $1.00 is the open question.
