What is collateral mobility, and why did Ripple invest in ZILO and Licuido?

The full answer

What does collateral mobility mean?

Collateral is an asset pledged to secure a loan or a trade. In a repo transaction, securities are used as collateral against a cash loan, as CaptainAltcoin explained on September 10, 2026 [3].

Ripple’s August 3, 2026 release frames collateral mobility through the problems it aims to remove. Ripple said issuers, investors and liquidity providers face the same constraints: collateral that sits idle instead of being put to work, settlement that takes longer than it should, and no easy way to unlock liquidity and mobilize collateral securely, confidentially and compliantly [1].

Timing is part of the problem. Ripple Prime CEO Mike Higgins, quoted by Benzinga on June 24, 2026, said that if a firm cannot move collateral, it cannot really trade or risk-manage on the weekend [2]. He said stablecoins let institutions meet margin calls outside banking hours, which can lower margin requirements for trading firms [2].

How is it different from tokenization?

Tokenization puts an asset on a ledger. Collateral mobility is what lets that token secure something else. Nigel Khakoo, SVP of Trading and Markets at Ripple, said in the August 3, 2026 release that tokenization is only the starting point, and that the value lies in buying, selling and settling the token, or using it as collateral to borrow, lend or post margin [1].

Ripple said that on its infrastructure, tokenized funds can be used as collateral from the point of issuance, and trades settle atomically on the XRPL [1]. This is Ripple’s description of its own design. Whether tokenized funds and Treasuries are already being turned into cash or credit in practice is the subject of Can tokenized Treasuries and funds be turned into cash or credit?.

Who are ZILO and Licuido, and what licences do they hold?

Ripple described ZILO as a specialist in global transfer agency technology for asset managers and wealth, and Licuido as a tokenization solution and trading platform for digital ownership and asset liquidity [1].

According to Ripple, ZILO’s transfer agency and fund administration technology gives asset managers, custodians and transfer agents digital record-keeping that supports tokenized share classes as funds move onchain [1]. Ripple said this gives institutions the regulated record they need to run lending and collateral markets [1].

Ripple’s release calls the capabilities “regulated” [1]. I could not find any passage of the release naming a licence, regulator or jurisdiction for either company, nor any other source doing so, as of October 1, 2026.

Why did Ripple invest in them?

Ripple gave its reasons in the same release. It said the two deals bring regulated transfer agency, issuance and collateral mobility to its infrastructure on the XRP Ledger [1]. It said ZILO and Licuido provide capabilities that are essential to further scaling the move of funds onchain: regulated digital transfer agency infrastructure, and liquidity for issuance and collateral mobility [1].

Ripple said the investments build on existing partnerships between the companies [1]. The release quotes a statement that “our partnerships with Aviva Investors, Franklin Templeton and DBS demonstrate how asset managers are focused on deploying tokenized fund structures at scale” [1]. Those partnerships have their own pages: What is Aviva Investors doing on the XRP Ledger? and What are DBS and Franklin Templeton doing with RLUSD?.

The amounts of the investments were not disclosed in Ripple’s release [1].

Has any collateral actually moved through Licuido’s marketplace, and how much?

As of October 1, 2026, I could not find any figure for collateral moved through Licuido’s platform or through Ripple’s XRPL collateral infrastructure. Ripple’s release describes its infrastructure as “designed to solve” the collateral problems it lists [1]. That is a statement of design and intent, not a reported volume.

For reference volumes from other tokenized repo and collateral networks, see How big is tokenized repo and collateral movement on other platforms, and where does the XRP Ledger stand?.

Does collateral mobility involve XRP?

Ripple’s release names RLUSD, its dollar stablecoin, as the regulated cash leg for delivery-versus-payment transactions on this infrastructure [1]. The release gives XRP no stated role.

A crypto.news analysis published on July 8, 2026, before these deals, found that inside Ripple’s own product stack the asset doing the settlement work is predominantly RLUSD, not XRP [4]. CaptainAltcoin wrote on September 10, 2026 that “connected to Ripple” does not mean “uses XRP” [3]. The wider question is covered in Does tokenization on the XRP Ledger create any demand for XRP?.

What is the strongest critique of these deals?

The strongest critique concerns who benefits. crypto.news argued on July 8, 2026 that Ripple built RLUSD to capture the settlement flow that XRP’s volatility rules out, and that every institutional win running through RLUSD is a win for Ripple and the ledger, and only residually for the token [4]. The same analysis called Ripple’s product network self-referential and said the market has learned to discount announcements in which Ripple is both counterparties [4]. These deals fit that pattern: Ripple is investing in firms that build on Ripple’s own infrastructure.

crypto.news also reported the opposing view. Supporters argue that RLUSD adoption seeds the ledger with the institutional liquidity that XRP-based collateral and bridging would later plug into. crypto.news called that answer coherent, and a claim about sequencing whose first half is observable and whose second half is not yet [4].