Garanti BBVA Kripto, the digital asset subsidiary of Turkey’s second-largest private bank, has extended its custody partnership with Ripple.
The Spanish bank Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) owns a majority stake in Garanti BBVA, approximately 86%. With the partnership, the bank aims to broaden its reach to a larger user base using Ripple’s custody services on the blockchain.
Ripple’s expansion into Europe
Ripple’s XRP, one of the top five cryptocurrencies, has a market cap of $115.71B as per CoinMarketCap. BBVA has been relying on Ripple Custody, an institutional-grade self-custody solution, to secure and manage tokenized assets, including cryptocurrencies.
As banks in Europe prepare for Market in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulations, transitioning from an experimental phase, the country has moved from a niche adoption to mainstream integration of digital assets by 2026.
Reece Merrick, the Managing Director of Ripple, announced the partnership through his X post, saying, “They’ll continue to leverage our custody technology to offer their millions of retail customers secure transfers and storage for major crypto assets like XRP, BTC & ETH.”
Ripple has been in alliance with BBVA since 2017, evolving through pilot programs to strategic investments and now cross-border custody partnerships. Garanti BBVA intends to use Ripple’s institutional-grade custody technology to secure major crypto assets.
“This renewal is a massive vote of confidence in our joint vision for secure, compliant digital asset infrastructure,” Merrick wrote on X.
Garanti BBVA partnered with Ripple Labs and IBM
Garanti BBVA announced its collaboration with Ripple Labs and IBM in 2024, which helped the bank to securely build, deploy, and manage the infrastructure. They also earned their reputation by providing secure protection for the application’s data.
Ripple’s Metaco custody service also enables the bank to safely store and manage crypto assets. Metaco handles activities such as vault access, approvals, and even security controls. The network is backed by IBM’s LinuxONE servers, known for very high security and often used by big banks for sensitive data, adding an extra layer of trust and protection. Therefore, the most recent extension broadens the scope of Ripple’s 2023 acquisition of Metaco.
