Ripple Expands To Portugal With Unicâmbio Partnership

Ripple disclosed a new partnership with Portuguese currency exchange provider Unicâmbio today. The collaboration, announced on February 10, 2025, will extend the company’s crypto-enabled payments solution to Portugal for the first time—particularly aimed at facilitating more seamless transactions between Portuguese and Brazilian markets.

Ripple Teams Up With Unicâmbio

Via X, the company announced: “Planting the Ripple flag in Portugal today with Unicâmbio, our first Portuguese client and the country’s leading currency exchange provider! Using Ripple Payments, their corporate customers can now move funds nearly instantly between Portugal and Brazil.”

In the official press release, Ripple, which describes itself as the “leading provider of digital asset infrastructure for financial institutions,” will deploy its Payments platform, leveraging digital assets to streamline cross-border payments between Portugal and Brazil. According to the announcement, Unicâmbio’s corporate customers stand to benefit immediately from near-instant settlement and reduced costs—an especially salient advantage in a corridor with robust economic and cultural ties.

“Our partnership with Unicâmbio is a significant milestone in Ripple’s European expansion. Portugal has developed a thriving crypto ecosystem so we are delighted to open up our payments solution to partners there,” said Cassie Craddock, Managing Director, UK & Europe, at Ripple. “By connecting our payment networks in Portugal and Brazil we are facilitating faster, more cost-effective cross-border payments, while strengthening the economic bridge between these two major markets. Ripple has over a decade of experience of tokenising real-world assets, starting with bringing fiat currencies onchain to seamlessly send money across borders.”

The company has previously established a prominent presence in Brazil through partnerships with Travelex Bank, operational since 2022, and Mercado Bitcoin—Latin America’s largest cryptocurrency exchange—which joined Ripple’s network late last year. With this latest move, the fintech deepens its focus on international expansion within Europe by tapping the Portuguese market’s growing appetite for digital asset solutions.

“Portugal and Brazil share deep economic and cultural ties, with significant money flows between the two countries,” noted Adriana Jerónimo, Executive Board Member at Unicâmbio. “By leveraging blockchain technology we’re transforming money movement between the two nations. Ripple’s crypto-enabled payments solution enables near-instant settlement and drastically reduces costs compared to traditional payments channels, delivering real value to our customers.”

According to the announcement, the company is positioned to offer core services that financial institutions need for tokenizing, storing, exchanging, and moving digital assets securely and in full compliance. Currently covering 90+ payout markets—representing over 90% of daily foreign exchange volume—the Payments platform has reportedly processed in excess of $70 billion in volume to date. The firm also cites 60+ regulatory licenses and registrations across various jurisdictions, adding a layer of regulatory assurance for its financial partners.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.43.