Ripple’s prime brokerage arm, Ripple Prime, has locked in a $200 million asset-based debt facility from Neuberger Berman’s specialty finance group. The money is meant to expand margin lending for institutional clients, letting them leverage positions across equities, fixed income, and crypto markets. It’s the latest sign that Ripple is pushing deeper into capital markets infrastructure after spending $1.25 billion to buy Hidden Road earlier this year.
How the facility works
The facility isn’t a lump-sum check. It’s drawn in tranches based on client borrowing demand, so Ripple Prime can tap up to the full $200 million as institutions scale their positions. Neuberger Berman closed a $7.3 billion private debt vehicle in 2025, giving the specialty finance group enough balance-sheet depth to absorb this commitment without material concentration risk. That kind of backstop matters when you’re lending against volatile crypto collateral.
Cross-collateral is the hook
What makes the facility different from a standard crypto credit line is cross-collateralization. Institutional clients can post fixed-income assets — think corporate bonds or Treasuries — as collateral against crypto margin positions. That’s a structure more common in traditional prime brokerage than in crypto-native lending. Noel Kimmel, President of Ripple Prime, previously led multi-asset prime services at Hidden Road before the acquisition, so the playbook comes straight from the legacy finance world.
Ripple’s pivot to capital markets
This deal fits a broader shift. Ripple’s payments network still connects over 300 banks globally, but XRP on-chain fees remain under $200,000 a month — hardly a revenue engine. Earlier in 2026, the company announced a $10 million investment in Guggenheim Treasury Services to tokenize US Treasury-backed fixed-income assets on the XRP Ledger. The prime brokerage unit, combined with that tokenization push, suggests Ripple is betting on institutional brokerage and capital markets services rather than just cross-border payments. The $500 million strategic investment round in November 2025, which valued Ripple at $40 billion, gave it the firepower to make these bets.
What’s next
The facility is already operational — clients can start borrowing as demand rolls in. On the XRP Ledger, large-wallet transfers have ticked up over the past two weeks, consistent with growing institutional adoption since Q1 2026. Whether that activity is linked to Ripple Prime’s new lending capacity is unclear, but the timing lines up. The facility doesn’t have a public draw deadline, so the next milestone to watch is how quickly institutional clients actually tap it.
