Ripple Signs Meritz Securities as Fourth Korean Partner in XRP Push

A First Securities Partner for Ripple in Korea

Four Korean institutions have signed with Ripple this year, and the newest is also its first partner from the securities industry. The company announced on Wednesday, October 14, that Meritz Securities will work with Ripple to build digital asset custody and tokenization infrastructure for South Korea's capital markets. The work begins inside Meritz's existing brokerage operations and regulatory standing, with both firms planning to widen the scope in stages as Korea's digital asset framework matures.

Under the arrangement, Ripple supplies an institutional-grade custody platform and supports asset transfer and settlement functions. Meritz is separately weighing a set of business lines that would run on that rail: spot cryptocurrency ETFs, fractional investment products, security tokens, a digital asset trading platform and a stablecoin denominated in won. Because Meritz already operates under Korean brokerage regulation, compliance functions such as KYC remain inside its licensed structure. Kang Byung-ha, the strategy planning executive at Meritz, said the firm will prepare safe and reliable digital asset financial services in step with the country's evolving rulebook. Fiona Murray, Ripple's managing director for Asia Pacific, tied the deal to institutional readiness. She described Korea as one of the world's most dynamic digital asset markets and said its institutions are moving from exploration to genuine practical use. The company's announcement on X lists Meritz as the fourth Korean institution signed this year, after Kyobo Life Insurance, which uses Ripple Custody to settle tokenized government bonds; Kbank, which deployed a wallet infrastructure; and Jeonbuk bank, which adopted Ripple's payments stack for cross-border transfers, a segment now commonly labeled PayFi. The XRP ecosystem thus extends across Korean custody, banking and payments, yet the XRP price stayed below $1.40 on Wednesday after the announcement.

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Retail Won Volumes Rotate to AI Tokens

Retail activity tells a different story from the institutional build-out. A Chainalysis adoption report on Eastern Asia shows payment tokens such as XRP losing share in the Korean won market. By June 2026, artificial intelligence tokens had overtaken payment tokens in won-denominated trading, and the report puts the AI category's share of won volume at 19.5 times the rate recorded in the Japanese yen market. Worldcoin (WLD) led the category with $7.41 billion in trading value in the year through June, a run that tracked the rising share price of the chipmaker SK Hynix.

Exchange volumes confirm the rotation. Monthly volume in Upbit's XRP/KRW market, visible on the exchange's official page, reached 28.94 billion XRP in November 2024. By September 2026 the monthly figure stood at 3.54 billion XRP, an 88% decline over 22 months. The token still ranked first on Upbit by 24-hour trading value on October 14, at roughly 80.5 billion won, ahead of Bitcoin at about 73.8 billion won. XRP traded near $1.37 when the data was compiled, down 7.19% over the past week and about 62% below its all-time high of $3.65 from July 17, 2025. Francis Kang, executive director of Korea Blockchain Week, said every major Korean bank and securities firm now runs a dedicated digital asset team, most of them piloting stablecoins, tokenization projects or custody builds. The report's conclusion is that Korean institutions remain in a preparation phase, which leaves retail traders the dominant force in won trading for now.

Price Awaits CPI and the $1.38 Line

Our reading: the two datasets describe one market moving at two speeds, as institutions assemble regulated Web3 infrastructure while retail money rotates into AI-linked names. The token climbed to about $1.38 intraday on Wednesday before easing back above $1.36, under a resistance cluster formed by the 200-day EMA at $1.38 and the 50-day EMA at $1.39, with the 100-day EMA at $1.34 and the SuperTrend level at $1.30 below. Our XRP technical analysis flags the $1.3856 resistance, approached after a 7% weekly decline, as the near-term pivot, and the tape still carries the aftermath of a record $610 million long liquidation flush. US CPI lands Wednesday, with the Federal Reserve widely expected to hold its policy rate at 3.75-4.00%; the next move likely waits on that print.