Ripple is growing its footprint in the UAE by taking its partnership with Zand Bank to the next level. What started last year as a payments deal is now turning into something bigger, centered around stablecoins. Ripple’s new dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, is being linked with Zand’s dirham-backed stablecoin, AEDZ, bringing traditional banking and blockchain closer together.
One big part of the deal is custody. Zand will support holding RLUSD within its regulated banking system, which is a big deal for institutions that care about security and compliance. It gives banks and large firms a safer, more familiar way to store digital dollars without stepping outside the rules.
The partnership also focuses on liquidity — basically making it easier to move money between dollars and UAE dirhams using stablecoins. By connecting RLUSD and AEDZ directly, cross-border payments between the U.S. and the UAE could become faster and smoother, with fewer middlemen slowing things down.
There’s also talk of issuing AEDZ directly on Ripple’s XRP Ledger. If that happens, it would let a regulated UAE bank run stablecoins on blockchain rails, showing how traditional finance is slowly moving on-chain. It’s another sign that banks aren’t just watching crypto anymore — they’re actively building with it.
