January 12–13, 2026 — Ripple’s ambitious strategy to construct a full-stack financial services ecosystem has received a major vote of confidence from SBI Group President Yoshitaka Kitao, strengthening the narrative that Ripple is evolving beyond payment products into foundational financial infrastructure.
Kitao — an early Ripple investor, former board member, and head of one of Asia’s leading financial conglomerates — publicly endorsed Ripple’s $2.45 billion acquisition spree designed to bring institutional-grade services under one umbrella. SBI Group has deep ties with Ripple, operating XRP validator nodes, handling XRP-based financial products, and integrating XRP into payment systems like SBI Remit and MoneyTap.
Ripple’s acquisitions include major companies in core financial infrastructure:
Hidden Road (prime brokerage, now Ripple Prime)
GTreasury (corporate treasury management)
Rail (stablecoin payment network)
Palisade (wallet custody services)
These assets form what insiders describe as an “Amazon-style platform” for institutional finance, offering custody, payments, treasury management, and broker-dealer services all within one ecosystem. XRP and Ripple USD (RLUSD) — the company’s dollar-pegged stablecoin — are being integrated throughout this stack, with RLUSD already used as collateral in prime brokerage operations.
The endorsement from SBI’s president — beyond mere investment — gives Ripple both credibility and strategic leverage, especially in Asia, where SBI is actively driving blockchain adoption. Analysts say this positions Ripple as a serious contender in the institutional financial infrastructure space, not just a crypto payments provider.
Note: Rumors of deep Amazon Web Services (AWS) protocol-level integration have been debunked; Ripple’s use of AWS tools is currently limited to internal analytics, not XRPL code changes.
