Ripple Payments Europe, the European payments arm of U.S.-based crypto and stablecoin player Ripple, has now legitimized its operations in the EU. This week, the entity was added to the MiCA-registered index of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) alongside Standard Chartered and FalconX among others.
Ripple is the issuer of the XRP token — which is presently the sixth largest crypto asset in circulation with a market cap of $67.36 billion, as per CoinMarketCap. The company headed by CEO Brad Garlinghouse also forayed into the stablecoin space with RLUSD in 2017.
On July 6, Ripple had announced that it had recieved its MiCA license from Luxembourg.
Despite’s Ripple’s prominence in the stablecoin arena, in the EU it has acquired the license to operate as a Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) while its RLUSD stablecoin is not part of ESMA’s table of “Electric Money Token Issuers”.
As European regulators are trying to give a strong foundation to EUR-dominated stablecoins, the European Central Bank (ECB) still seems to be harbouring reluctance to accelerate the adoption of this new asset category.
Updates from ESMA
The markets watchdog of the EU, ESMA, has been keenly updating its index of MiCA-licensed CASPs now that the July 1 deadline for companies to comply with the rules has exhausted. In the last three weeks, ESMA has updated its crypto company index twice.
According to Friday’s update, 14 new firms offering crypto-related services have been added to ESMA’s list. Along with Ripple as a core-crypto player, a number of traditional banks also made the cut into the ESMA list this time. These include the Bison Bank, Kaiser Partner Privatbank, and two German cooperative banks — Volksbank Schwarzwald-Donau-Neckar and Raiffeisenbank Auerbach-Freihung.
Prior to this update, 37 new ones had made it to the list on July 3, just days after the MiCA-compliance deadline ended and investors had to be informed of licensed CASPs to engage with.
At present, the list shows 294 CASPs registered to offer crypto services across the EU.
In the coming year, all of these companies will be assessed for their relisilience and risk-assessment plans — as per ESMA’s plan. This business audit is aimed at serving as another layer of security for EU’s crypto investors keeping their funds in the custody of CASPs. The way platforms monitor and approve transactions will also be under ESMA’s scanner in the EU.
Notably, ESMA’s index of legitimate stablecoin issuers (EMT issuers) remained unchanged on Friday. It names 21 stablecoin players including Circle (USDC) and the issuers of a number of EUR-pegged tokens like EURe and EURW among others.
Ripple’s absence from the list has come into light — leaving the questions around its stablecoin plans in the EU unanswered for now.
Tether, the issuer of the largest global stablecoin USDT, is also not registered in the EU as yet — perhaps owing to the ECB’s scrutiny over this category of fiat-backed money.
Threatened by stablecoins?
EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Regulations imply heavy regulations on stablecoin uses and its issuers. It has divided stablecoins into two specific categories — EMTs that are pegged to a single official currency and Asset-Referenced Tokens (ARTs) — that are pegged to multiple currencies, commodities, or crypto-assets.
Despite strict reserve mandates and other legal requirements, the European Central Bank (ECB) has maintained a skeptical approach towards scaling engagement with stablecoins.
On Friday, ECB’s board member Piero Cipollone said traditional banks could lose retail deposits to stablecoins citing that, “the gradual digitalisation of payments has weakened Europe’s ability to rely on its own payments infrastructure.”
Instead, the ECB is more interested in exploring the digital Euro CBDC, which will be issued as well as monitored by the ECB itself.
This is the main difference between stablecoins and a CBDC. While the former are issued by dedicated companies, CBDCs fall directly under the jurisdictions of the central banks.
“The digital euro will also work without an internet connection. When there is no signal, consumers and merchants will still be able to settle payments directly between their devices, with the same level of privacy as cash,” Cipollone said, backing the CBDC.
This week itself, the ECB selected 36 financial majors to participate in the digital euro trials that will start in the second half of 2027. Deutsche Bank, Revolut, and Stripe are among the handpicked fintech firms that will be sharing insights and feedbacks on ECB’s digital euro CBDC once its design is complete and ready for pilot trials.
