Ripple joins MiCA register as ESMA licensing pace slows to 14 new firms
Ripple’s EU payments arm wins bloc-wide passporting rights as ESMA adds 14 CASPs, taking the MiCA register to 294 firms.
Ripple Payments Europe has secured bloc-wide authorisation under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, after the European Securities and Markets Authority added the firm to its MiCA register on Thursday alongside 13 other companies. The update takes the total number of licensed crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) in the EU to 294, but the modest size of the batch signals that the initial rush to secure passporting rights under the bloc’s flagship crypto framework is beginning to level off.
ESMA’s interim register, which tracks firms cleared to operate across all 27 member states under a single authorisation, had swelled by 37 entrants in the first major post-deadline update on 3 July, following the close of MiCA’s transitional period. Thursday’s addition of 14 firms marks a considerably slower pace, an early indication that the surge of applications filed ahead of the transition deadline is now working through national regulators in smaller waves.
Ripple secures EU passport
Ripple Payments Europe, the European payments arm of the blockchain company best known for the XRP token, is the most prominent name among the new entrants. Authorisation under MiCA gives the firm the right to offer its crypto-asset services across the entire single market without seeking separate approval from each national regulator, a significant operational advantage for a company that has been steadily expanding its cross-border payments infrastructure in Europe.
For Ripple, the listing formalises its standing as a regulated payments provider inside the bloc at a moment when the company continues to position its network for institutional settlement use cases. For European regulators, the addition of a well-capitalised, US-founded crypto firm to the register is a marker of MiCA’s stated ambition: to draw large international players into a single, supervised regime rather than leaving them to navigate a patchwork of national licensing rules.
Banks deepen their footprint in regulated crypto
The update also underscores the extent to which conventional banks are now embedding themselves in the EU’s regulated crypto market. Portugal’s Bison Bank and Croatia’s state-owned Hrvatska poštanska banka were both added to the register, alongside two German cooperative lenders, Volksbank Schwarzwald-Donau-Neckar and Raiffeisenbank Auerbach-Freihung. Liechtenstein-based private bank Kaiser Partner Privatbank was also included, extending the presence of private banking groups now offering crypto services under the MiCA umbrella.
These additions build on a register that already lists major institutions such as Spain’s BBVA and CaixaBank, Germany’s Commerzbank and France’s CACEIS Bank, illustrating how thoroughly mainstream European finance has moved into MiCA-supervised digital asset activity since the framework’s transitional period concluded.
Why the slowdown matters
MiCA was designed to give the EU a harmonised licensing regime that would let compliant firms operate freely across the single market, replacing a patchwork of national approvals that had long frustrated cross-border crypto business in Europe. The drop from 37 new entrants earlier in July to just 14 in the latest update suggests national regulators are now processing a steadier, more manageable flow of applications rather than clearing a backlog built up ahead of the transitional deadline.
For UK and European institutional investors watching the bloc’s approach to digital assets, the pattern offers a useful signal: MiCA authorisation is increasingly becoming a baseline expectation for serious market entrants, from crypto-native payments firms to regional and private banks, even as the pace of new licensing settles into a more routine rhythm.
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