Ripple has expanded its agreement with Brevan Howard, a fund manager overseeing about $35 billion, to provide its funds with multi-asset prime brokerage, clearing, and financing through Ripple Prime.
Summary
- Brevan Howard funds will gain access to brokerage, clearing and financing through Ripple Prime.
- The agreement extends a relationship that included participation in Ripple’s $500 million investment round.
- Ripple Prime launched U.S. equity swaps in August after raising $275 million through senior notes.
- Brevan Howard expects the platform to improve its investment teams’ operations and use of capital.
Ripple announced on Oct. 6 that Brevan Howard funds will use its prime brokerage platform across traditional and digital markets. Under the agreement, the manager will receive services across several asset classes and products through a unified platform.
For Brevan Howard’s investment teams, the expected benefit centers on managing trading operations and capital, according to Group Chief Operating Officer Alan McGroarty. He said the growing connection between digital and traditional markets has increased the need for institutional-quality digital asset infrastructure.
“Ripple has built a differentiated platform that we expect will provide our investment teams with increased operational ease and capital efficiency,” McGroarty said.
Ripple Prime will serve an existing institutional investor
The new service agreement follows an earlier investment relationship. According to Ripple’s announcement, funds managed by Brevan Howard affiliates participated in its $500 million strategic investment in 2025.
As crypto.news previously reported, Ripple raised $500 million on Nov. 5, 2025, at a $40 billion valuation. The company’s funding announcement named Fortress Investment Group affiliates, Citadel Securities affiliates, Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard, and Marshall Wace among the investors.
In that announcement, Ripple described the funding as new common equity and said it chose to accept the investment because of the value of closer relationships with financial partners. The company said the transaction followed a separate $1 billion tender offer at the same valuation.
According to the November release, Ripple had repurchased more than a quarter of its outstanding shares in recent years, providing liquidity to employees and early investors. At the time, the company also reported completing six acquisitions in just over two years, including two transactions valued above $1 billion each.
A July 1 report examining Ripple’s valuation put the company’s valuation near $50 billion following a $750 million share buyback earlier in 2026. The report described the transaction as a company share repurchase.
U.S. equity swaps extend the brokerage’s trading services
For institutions seeking U.S. stock exposure, Ripple Prime’s service expansion already includes an equity derivatives business. In its Aug. 27 announcement, Ripple said the Delta One offering was live and supported total return swaps linked to U.S.-listed equities, indexes and digital assets.
An Aug. 27 report covering the U.S. equity derivatives launch explained that total return swaps provide exposure to an asset’s economic performance without requiring direct ownership. Payments between the parties generally depend on the referenced asset’s return and the financing terms agreed under the contract.
According to Ripple’s launch announcement, the product serves hedge funds, asset managers and other financial institutions, with arrangements tailored to their investment periods, risk requirements and reporting needs.
Within the platform, Ripple said clients can maintain one counterparty relationship and cross-margin supported positions across asset classes around the clock. The company listed foreign exchange, derivatives, fixed income and digital assets among its existing markets.
Ripple also said its Delta One operation works in clearing and financing rather than alongside a proprietary trading or market-making business. In the same release, the company reported that Ripple Prime held more than $1 billion in regulatory net capital.
The August coverage traced Ripple Prime’s origins to the $1.25 billion purchase of Hidden Road, which Ripple completed in October 2025 after announcing the transaction in April. According to that report, the acquired business already provided institutional brokerage, clearing, and financing across traditional and digital assets.
Debt financing adds capacity for U.S. operations
Before introducing Delta One, Ripple Prime completed a $275 million private placement of senior unsecured notes on Aug. 18. In its financing announcement, Ripple said the proceeds would support working capital and general corporate purposes within a regulated entity as the brokerage expanded its U.S. business.
An Aug. 19 report on the prime brokerage financing deal said the placement attracted institutional investors and would add capacity across financing, clearing and brokerage services.
According to Ripple’s Aug. 18 release, KBRA assigned the unsecured notes a BBB investment-grade rating. The company said the agency had previously given Ripple Prime the same issuer rating, while Piper Sandler acted as lead placement agent for the offering.
The August financing report also detailed a $200 million facility secured in May from funds managed by Neuberger Berman. It distinguished that arrangement’s client-lending capacity from the senior unsecured debt issued in August.
In the same report, RLUSD was identified as an accepted collateral asset within Ripple Prime. Ripple had also disclosed plans to move some post-trade activity onto the XRP Ledger, according to the coverage.
For U.S. fixed-income business, the report noted that Hidden Road received a FINRA broker-dealer license in April 2025, before Ripple completed its acquisition. A month later, the firm introduced over-the-counter, cash-settled crypto swaps for U.S. institutional investors through its U.K. entity regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
