Loans Go On-Chain Without Borrowers Taking a Blockchain Detour

Cross River has partnered with Offchain Labs to bring blockchain-based loan tokenization to the lending platform, allowing loans to be financed and transferred on Arbitrum One from origination. Production deployment is scheduled for early 2027 following successful testing, the companies said on November 3.

Under the partnership, Cross River will build the loan-tokenization infrastructure while Offchain Enterprise Services will provide the underlying technology. Lending partners will be able to finance, hold, and transfer loans through Arbitrum One immediately after origination, with blockchain records tracking each loan’s ownership, financing, repayments, and servicing throughout its lifecycle.

Borrowers will continue using Cross River’s existing lending interfaces, while ZeroDev wallets handle blockchain-related functions behind the scenes. Cross River will remain the regulated bank and lender of record, maintaining oversight of the lending activities as the shared ledger records changes in loan ownership and associated payments.

The initiative is intended to give Cross River and its lending partners a more flexible loan-distribution and funding model. Possible participants include international investors, on-chain investment funds, and other institutions seeking blockchain-based exposure to loan ownership.

In October, Cross River also partnered with Ripple to integrate RLUSD into its banking infrastructure, adding stablecoin payments on the XRP Ledger to Cross River’s banking system.