Ripple announced November 2nd that the XRP token has been approved under the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) virtual asset regime.
That approval means virtual asset companies can use XRP if they are licensed within the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) area – a special economic zone and financial center in the United Arab Emirates’ largest city.
Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, said:
“It is refreshing to see the DFSA encouraging the adoption and use of digital assets like realize.”
The DFSA previously approved Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) in November 2022. Toncoin (TON) was approved today along with XRP.
Ripple described its goals to expand within Dubai earlier this year. Today it noted that it has chosen DIFC as its headquarters in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and said around 20% of its customers are based in the MENA region.
Ripple is working with Georgia on digital lari
In related news, also Ripple announced the National Bank of Georgia had selected it as the official technology partner for its digital lari pilot project.
The announcement shows that Ripple has been chosen as a partner from a shortlist of nine candidates. The program is now moving to a pilot phase and live testing.
The project involves a tokenized version of the Georgian lari (GEL) in place of the XRP token. However, the project will use Ripple’s CBDC platform for central bank digital currencies, which in turn is powered by the XRP Ledger (XRPL).
The pilot phase will reportedly experiment with potential applications for the digital lari in the public sector, for businesses and for general retail users.
Ripple said in its press release that it previously announced pilot programs with governments in five other regions: Bhutan, Palau, Colombia, Montenegro and Hong Kong. The company said it is also currently working with more than 20 other countries.