Ripple is moving forward with plans to add lending capabilities to the XRP Ledger (XRPL) through what it describes as an XRPL Lending Protocol. According to reports, the initiative is designed to give financial institutions a way to structure loans directly on-chain, rather than relying only on issuing and transferring assets. The protocol is presented as a “lending layer” for XRPL, aimed at enabling borrowing against on-chain assets and expanding XRPL’s use beyond payments and asset movement. Decrypt reports that developers are testing components of the protocol and that Ripple’s proposal focuses on how lending and credit features could be implemented in a form suitable for institutional use. PYMNTS similarly reports that Ripple hopes to bring a lending layer to XRPL, citing the goal of allowing institutions to access credit by leveraging assets already recorded on the ledger. The accounts converge on the same core direction: Ripple is developing and testing on-chain lending and credit functionality for XRPL, with the intention of broadening how entities can create and manage loans using blockchain-based assets.