Ripple Expands UK Crypto Footprint With 120+ Staff and £22B Aviva Fund on XRP Ledger
Key Takeaways:
- Ripple now employs over 120 people on a full-time basis in its office in London.
- Aviva Investors released its tokenized share class of the £22 billion Sterling Liquidity Fund on XRPL.
- Clearer UK crypto rules build better institutional involvement, says Ripple.
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Ripple is solidifying its foothold in the UK while tokenization continues to grow in popularity among financial establishments on the XRP network. Now the biggest location, apart from the USA, the company operates in London, and a new XRPL institutional application is now underway in a fund launched by Aviva Investors.
Ripple Builds Out Its Largest International Hub
The UK and Europe Managing Director, Cassie Craddock, said the UK and Europe were the early market of choice for Ripple, based on capital markets, the legal framework, regulatory knowledge and financial expertise.
Had the pleasure of joining a fireside chat at the British Residence in New York last week, on the sidelines of Swell, talking about the UK’s role in the future of financial services. TLDR: it’s going to be huge.
Not many people know that our London HQ is Ripple’s largest office hub outside of the US. We bet big on London early on. When we took on our current office in 2018 it was two floors with a lot of empty desks. Today it is three floors, every desk is full and we are over capacity.
We made that bet because the UK had the building blocks: deep capital markets, world-leading legal frameworks and regulators, and exceptional talent. But regulation was the missing piece. Post-MiCA, a gap opened up: we were signing deals with major banks across the EU while large UK institutions held back.
That has changed. The UK now has a comprehensive cryptoasset and stablecoin framework incoming, we have a superb City Minister @LucyRigby KC MP and Digital Markets Champion Christopher Woolard CBE driving this agenda forward at real pace, and we are starting to see meaningful engagement from leading financial institutions.
Last week’s announcement with @avivainvestors is a great proof point: a tokenised share class of their £22 billion Sterling Liquidity Fund, launched on the XRP Ledger.
Thanks to the British Consulate team for hosting, City of London Corporation for convening and to @citypolicychair for moderating our discussion. I’m excited for what comes next.
— Cassie Craddock (@CraddockCJ) November 4, 2026
The company opened its London office in 2016, and has more than 120 full-time employees on site, according to the company. According to Ripple, London is the company’s largest second headquarters outside of its head office in the United States.
The office capacity went from two full floors with a lot of unused space in 2018 to a 3rd floor that is now full, said Craddock. That growth comes alongside a broader regulatory push in the UK. In September 2026, FCA launched its new, crypto-smartened authorization gateway even though the new regime kicks in Oct. 25, 2027.
Read More: Ripple Expands BNY Deal to Bring $2.5B RLUSD and XRP Into Trade Finance
Ripple Secures UK Regulatory Permissions
In January 2026, the FCA granted Ripple an Electronic Money Institution licence and a registration for cryptoassets. The permissions enable the company to extend Ripple Payments to UK institutions, such as cross-border payments service using digital assets.
For Ripple, it means it has now gained regulatory clarity to do business with banks, asset managers and other regulated financial institutions in the UK.
£22B Aviva Fund Moves Onto XRP Ledger
The current embodiment is the strongest in recent years: Aviva Investors. Aviva on Oct. 26 launched a tokenized share class on its Sterling Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger. Its underlying fund holds a value of approximately £22 billion which represents Aviva Investors largest fund.
The tokenized share class will have a structure that is referred to as a “digital twin”, which is where the onchain share is still connected to, and not part of, the current fund structure.
The investor has the same objective, risk tolerance, liquidity and regulatory features as in the traditional version. The Aviva tokenized Sterling fund had cost £50 million to set up and assets in its two tokenised share classes topped over £86m.
XRPL Gains Another Institutional Tokenization Use Case
The Sterling fund is Aviva’s second liquidity token on XRPL. Its initial share class tokenisation offering debuted in July 2026 as a result of the announced partnership with Ripple in February.
Eligible investors with digital wallets can buy the new version of Sterling, which are known as underlying assets and remain with custodian BNY.
On the other hand, for Ripple the transaction is part of a broader institutional adoption of XRPL through the issuance and management of tokenized fund interests on the public blockchain infrastructure.
Read More: Ripple Partners With Robinhood to Bring $2.4B RLUSD to 28.6M Customers
This story was originally published by CryptoNinjas. Read the original article.
