Absa Corporate and Investment Banking is offering digital asset custody (institutional crypto safekeeping) in South Africa using Ripple’s custody technology. The service is designed to let institutional clients protect digital assets and manage private keys within a regulated banking environment, with controls covering governance, approvals, compliance and recoverability. Absa says its architecture uses secure hardware environments and deterministic key derivation rather than permanently storing static private keys. The launch comes as Sub-Saharan Africa received more than $205 billion in onchain crypto value between July 2024 and June 2025, up roughly 52% from the previous year, according to Chainalysis. Ripple announced the partnership in October 2025, making Absa its first major custody partner in Africa, as the company expands beyond payments and XRP into custody, RLUSD and tokenization.