Cross River taps Offchain Labs for loan tokenization on Arbitrum

The partnership will let lending partners finance, hold and transfer loans through Arbitrum One immediately after origination. According to the companies, blockchain records will track each loan's ownership, financing, repayments and servicing throughout its lifecycle in a shared ledger as ownership changes. Cross River will retain its role as the regulated bank and lender of record.

Cross River said its current underwriting, compliance and risk management terms will not change, and that it will remain in charge of the loans while Offchain Enterprise Services handles the blockchain infrastructure. Cross River hopes the infrastructure will give it a more flexible way of loan distribution and a different funding system, with possible participants including international investors, on-chain investment funds and institutions seeking exposure to tokenized credit. Planned capabilities include a continuous loan purchase programme and lower investment volumes, but the partners have not announced specific lending products or commercial launch dates.

Gilles Gade, founder and CEO of Cross River, likened the arrangement to "origination with tokenization." He said: "Starting there means one record, fewer steps, from funding through every change of hands." Offchain CEO Steven Goldfeder said dedicated engineers would work directly with Cross River's development team, and that the solution integrates Arbitrum One and embedded wallet infrastructure via Offchain Enterprise Services. The companies said they have finished a proof of concept and are getting ready for deployment, with Cross River expecting production in early 2027 without an exact date.

In October, Cross River partnered with Ripple to integrate RLUSD into its banking infrastructure, adding Cross River's banking system and stablecoin payments on the XRP Ledger. Chainlink also introduced institutional DeFi lending infrastructure with Anchorage Digital in October, a service called CustodySync that links lending markets to assets held by qualified custodians.