Ripple and UAE’s Zand Bank deepen collaboration to link RLUSD and AEDZ stablecoins, integrating blockchain solutions into regulated financial services across the region.
Ripple has expanded its partnership with UAE-based digital bank Zand to develop on-chain financial infrastructure through stablecoins. The collaboration centers on Zand’s AEDZ, a dirham-backed stablecoin, and Ripple’s U.S. dollar stablecoin, RLUSD. Plans include supporting RLUSD within Zand’s regulated digital asset custody platform, enabling direct liquidity between RLUSD and AEDZ, and exploring issuance of AEDZ on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) with compliance and risk controls. Zand’s CEO highlighted stablecoins, blockchain, and tokenization as foundations for transitioning traditional finance on-chain. This builds on an earlier payments partnership and could strengthen Ripple’s presence in the Middle East digital asset ecosystem. At press time, XRP traded at $1.40, down 26% over 14 days and 33% over 30 days.