Ripple widened its traditional-finance push on Aug. 18 by signing Jeonbuk Bank as the first South Korean regional lender to use Ripple Payments for cross-border business transfers and by raising $275 million through Ripple Prime's upsized private placement of BBB-rated senior unsecured notes, with Piper Sandler as lead manager. Jeonbuk will use the platform for near real-time, round-the-clock settlement for business customers, while Ripple Prime, the brokerage business built from Ripple's $1.25 billion Hidden Road acquisition, said the debt proceeds will support working capital and general corporate purposes as it expands U.S. financing, clearing and prime brokerage services. The note sale follows a $200 million credit facility from funds managed by Neuberger Berman in May, taking Ripple Prime's new financing access since then to as much as $475 million as Ripple integrates RLUSD collateral and other blockchain tools into a business that clears more than $3 trillion annually for more than 300 institutional clients across digital assets and traditional markets. The broader expansion has not translated directly into XRP demand: Ripple has not disclosed which asset Jeonbuk will use for settlement, and XRP fell to about $0.98 before recovering to around $1.06 as Binance open interest climbed to about $461.3 million.