Ripple and Water.org reach one million people, deepen partnership to drive global access to safe water. Expanded collaboration brings together Ripple Payments, Ripple USD (RLUSD) and digital asset custody to move and manage capital more efficiently across emerging markets NEW YORK-(BUSINESS WIRE)-Ripple, the leading provider of blockchain solutions across traditional and digital finance, today announced an expanded partnership with Water.org, the nonprofit co-founded by Gary White and Matt Damon that has helped more than 95 million people gain access to safe water or sanitation worldwide. Building on more than a year of collaboration, Water.org is expanding its use of Ripple's infrastructure across payments, stablecoins and custody to move and manage capital more efficiently across its global operations. The partnership leverages Ripple's payments, stablecoin and digital asset infrastructure to help Water.org move funding faster, reduce costs, and scale access to water and sanitation financing while bringing global humanitarian aid where it's most needed. Ripple Payments enables faster, lower-cost cross-border flows to Water.org's network of local financial institution partners; Ripple USD (RLUSD), Ripple's US dollar-backed stablecoin, provides a digital settlement layer for more efficient WaterCredit disbursements; and Water.org will now use Ripple's Wallet-as-a-Service technology to securely manage digital assets, simplifying operations as these programs scale into new markets. Ripple's funding and payments infrastructure have helped Water.org reach more than 1 million people with access to safe water or sanitation financing across Latin America. With Ripple Payments, Water.org has seen measurable operational improvements: more than $3.2 million moved across four markets, settlement times dropped from two to three days to same-day in Mexico and Brazil, payment processing is now available 24/7/365 rather than subject to a single daily banking cutoff. Transaction fees have also dropped by up to 66 percent, meaning more of every dollar reaches borrowers rather than being absorbed by fees. To sustain and accelerate this work, Ripple has committed $6 million to Water.org over three years to support solutions like WaterCredit, which partners with local financial institutions to provide affordable loans for families to bring taps, toilets and piped water connections home. Water.org also received a grant of $1.25 million in RLUSD through the Stablecoin Impact Fund, to expand stablecoin-enabled WaterCredit disbursements into Indonesia, the Philippines and Uganda. "Ending the water crisis is, at its core, a funding problem. The issue isn't a lack of money. It's how that money flows. Families living in poverty are already paying for water every day. When affordable financing reaches them, that spending becomes a tap or a toilet that lasts. That only works when capital can reach our local partners quickly and efficiently, wherever they are. Ripple has shown what that looks like. In Latin America, we have seen that when money moves the way it should, every dollar goes farther and reaches more people. Together, we're building toward a future where everyone has safe water and sanitation," said Gary White, Co-Founder and CEO, Water.org. "The promise of crypto and blockchain has always been about making money move faster, more efficiently and globally. With Water.org, we're seeing what that looks like first hand. Water.org's work is critical to expanding access to safe water and sanitation worldwide, and we're proud to help scale that impact by making it faster and more affordable to move money where it's needed most," said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple. Beyond its direct support for Water.org, Ripple is also putting capital to work through the WaterEquity Everspring Fund, a perpetual impact vehicle that uses philanthropic capital to unlock commercial investment in water and sanitation lending across emerging markets. As loans are repaid, capital is recycled into new lending - allowing each dollar to support families and communities again and again. Ripple also joins Get Blue - a movement launched by Water.org - as the exclusive digital asset and FinTech partner. Inspired by the (RED) campaign, Get Blue unites brands, creators, artists, and consumers behind a single mission: bringing safe water home for millions of families worldwide. Founding partners include Gap, Amazon, Starbucks, and Ecolab. As the exclusive FinTech partner, Ripple brings the payments and stablecoin infrastructure that powers Water.org's ability to move money faster and more affordably to the local financial institutions disbursing WaterCredit loans. Ripple's first year of Get Blue funding has helped Water.org reach 400,000 people, with its three-year commitment expected to support 1.2 million people. Get Blue is part of Water.org's goal to reach 200 million people with access to safe water or sanitation by 2030. Water.org co-founders Gary White and Matt Damon join Ripple at Swell 2026 for a fireside chat with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse - discussing what innovative financial solutions can do to help bring safe water and sanitation to millions of families worldwide, and the role of faster, more affordable payments infrastructure in scaling Water.org's proven microloan model. About Ripple Founded in 2012, Ripple is the leading provider of blockchain solutions rewiring the global financial system. With over 85 licenses, Ripple provides a single trusted entry point for enterprises with payments, custody, prime brokerage and treasury management solutions. Ripple's stablecoin, RLUSD, and the digital asset XRP underpin these capabilities, enabling Ripple and its customers to bridge the worlds of traditional and digital finance. About Water.org Water.org is a global nonprofit organization that has positively transformed more than 95 million lives around the world through access to safe water and sanitation. Founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, Water.org pioneers market-driven solutions to the global water crisis. For more than 30 years, we have helped give women hope, children health, and families bright futures. Learn more at https://water.org. About Get Blue Get Blue(TM) is a global movement mobilizing brands, creators, consumers, and capital to Bring Water Home(TM) and help solve the global water crisis. Get Blue brings the power of its partners' commerce to one of the world's most pressing challenges. Proceeds of Get Blue products and activations will directly power Water.org's proven solutions to connect families to safe water and sanitation. Get Blue was created in collaboration with global brand consultancy Wolff Olins. Learn more at GetBlue.water.org. Contacts. Ripple press contact: Kailey Medzadouran [email protected] Ripple. Release Versions Ripple press contact: Kailey Medzadouran [email protected]

Ripple and Water.org reach one million people, deepen partnership to drive global access to safe water. Team Ripple Expanded collaboration brings together Ripple Payments, Ripple USD (RLUSD) and digital asset custody to move and manage capital more efficiently across emerging markets NEW YORK, October 28, 2026 - Ripple, the leading provider of blockchain solutions across traditional and digital finance, today announced an expanded partnership with Water.org, the nonprofit co-founded by Gary White and Matt Damon that has helped more than 95 million people gain access to safe water or sanitation worldwide. Building on more than a year of collaboration, Water.org is expanding its use of Ripple's infrastructure across payments, stablecoins and custody to move and manage capital more efficiently across its global operations. The partnership leverages Ripple's payments, stablecoin and digital asset infrastructure to help Water.org move funding faster, reduce costs, and scale access to water and sanitation financing while bringing global humanitarian aid where it's most needed. Ripple Payments enables faster, lower-cost cross-border flows to Water.org's network of local financial institution partners; Ripple USD (RLUSD), Ripple's US dollar-backed stablecoin, provides a digital settlement layer for more efficient WaterCredit disbursements; and Water.org will now use Ripple's Wallet-as-a-Service technology to securely manage digital assets, simplifying operations as these programs scale into new markets. Ripple's funding and payments infrastructure have helped Water.org reach more than 1 million people with access to safe water or sanitation financing across Latin America. With Ripple Payments, Water.org has seen measurable operational improvements: more than $3.2 million moved across four markets, settlement times dropped from two to three days to same-day in Mexico and Brazil, payment processing is now available 24/7/365 rather than subject to a single daily banking cutoff. Transaction fees have also dropped by up to 66 percent, meaning more of every dollar reaches borrowers rather than being absorbed by fees. To sustain and accelerate this work, Ripple has committed $6 million to Water.org over three years to support solutions like WaterCredit, which partners with local financial institutions to provide affordable loans for families to bring taps, toilets and piped water connections home. Water.org also received a grant of $1.25 million in RLUSD through the Stablecoin Impact Fund, to expand stablecoin-enabled WaterCredit disbursements into Indonesia, the Philippines and Uganda. "Ending the water crisis is, at its core, a funding problem. The issue isn't a lack of money. It's how that money flows. Families living in poverty are already paying for water every day. When affordable financing reaches them, that spending becomes a tap or a toilet that lasts. That only works when capital can reach our local partners quickly and efficiently, wherever they are. Ripple has shown what that looks like. In Latin America, we have seen that when money moves the way it should, every dollar goes farther and reaches more people. Together, we're building toward a future where everyone has safe water and sanitation." - said Gary White, Co-Founder and CEO, Water.org "The promise of crypto and blockchain has always been about making money move faster, more efficiently and globally. With Water.org, we're seeing what that looks like first hand. Water.org's work is critical to expanding access to safe water and sanitation worldwide, and we're proud to help scale that impact by making it faster and more affordable to move money where it's needed most." said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple Beyond its direct support for Water.org, Ripple is also putting capital to work through the WaterEquity Everspring Fund, a perpetual impact vehicle that uses philanthropic capital to unlock commercial investment in water and sanitation lending across emerging markets. As loans are repaid, capital is recycled into new lending - allowing each dollar to support families and communities again and again. Ripple also joins Get Blue - a movement launched by Water.org - as the exclusive digital asset and FinTech partner. Inspired by the (RED) campaign, Get Blue unites brands, creators, artists, and consumers behind a single mission: bringing safe water home for millions of families worldwide. Founding partners include Gap, Amazon, Starbucks, and Ecolab. As the exclusive FinTech partner, Ripple brings the payments and stablecoin infrastructure that powers Water.org's ability to move money faster and more affordably to the local financial institutions disbursing WaterCredit loans. Ripple's first year of Get Blue funding has helped Water.org reach 400,000 people, with its three-year commitment expected to support 1.2 million people. Get Blue is part of Water.org's goal to reach 200 million people with access to safe water or sanitation by 2030. Water.org co-founders Gary White and Matt Damon join Ripple at Swell 2026 for a fireside chat with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse - discussing what innovative financial solutions can do to help bring safe water and sanitation to millions of families worldwide, and the role of faster, more affordable payments infrastructure in scaling Water.org's proven microloan model. About Ripple Founded in 2012, Ripple is the leading provider of blockchain solutions rewiring the global financial system. With over 85 licenses, Ripple provides a single trusted entry point for enterprises with payments, custody, prime brokerage and treasury management solutions. Ripple's stablecoin, RLUSD, and the digital asset XRP underpin these capabilities, enabling Ripple and its customers to bridge the worlds of traditional and digital finance. About Water.org Water.org is a global nonprofit organization that has positively transformed more than 95 million lives around the world through access to safe water and sanitation. Founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, Water.org pioneers market-driven solutions to the global water crisis. For more than 30 years, Ripple Inc. has helped give women hope, children health, and families bright futures. Learn more at https://water.org. About Get Blue Get Blue(TM) is a global movement mobilizing brands, creators, consumers, and capital to Bring Water Home(TM) and help solve the global water crisis. Get Blue brings the power of its partners' commerce to one of the world's most pressing challenges. Proceeds of Get Blue products and activations will directly power Water.org's proven solutions to connect families to safe water and sanitation. Get Blue was created in collaboration with global brand consultancy Wolff Olins. Learn more at GetBlue.water.org. Ripple press contact:

Water.org co-founder Gary White honored with 2025 Hoover Medal. Aug 24, 2026, 09:59 ET White joins a distinguished list of past honorees for more than 30 years of expanding access to safe water and sanitation - one of the defining challenges of our time STOCKHOLM, Aug. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Gary White, co-founder and CEO of Water.org, has received the 2025 Hoover Medal, one of the engineering profession's highest honors, awarded by the Hoover Medal Board. White will be presented with the award by Professor Joel Burken, Professor at Missouri S&T, during the Stockholm International Water Institute's (SIWI) World Water Week Closing Ceremony on Thursday August 27 from 4:00 - 5:00pm CEST. He will also be honored at the American Society of Civil Engineers conference in Philadelphia, March 1-5, 2027. The Hoover Medal is awarded annually to an engineer whose work has improved humanity through technical achievement and service. White was recognized for more than 30 years of applying that mindset to the global water crisis, helping people living in poverty access to the infrastructure and financing they need to access safe water and sanitation. White is the seventy-sixth recipient of the Hoover Medal since the first award to Herbert Hoover in 1930. The Medal is awarded by a board representing five engineering organizations: The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Additional past recipients include Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Steve Wozniak, and David Packard - placing White among a small group recognized for using engineering to serve the public good on a global scale. With few water and sanitation engineers among past recipients, White's recognition marks a notable moment for the field as much as for Water.org and underscores the growing importance of water and sanitation as a global development and economic priority. White earned three degrees in civil and environmental engineering, two from Missouri University of Science and Technology and one from the University of North Carolina. "I'm deeply honored to receive the Hoover Medal and to be included among the engineers who've received it before me," said Gary White, co-founder and CEO of Water.org. "I started my career as an engineer working on water projects in Latin America, and it was there I first saw what it takes for families to access something as essential as safe water. That experience has driven everything I've built since." White's engineering career began with water projects in Latin America, where he saw firsthand what limited access to safe water meant for families' health, income, and time. Years later, while working in India, he met a woman paying a moneylender 125% interest just to afford a household toilet - a moment that crystallized the idea that would become WaterCredit: using small, affordable loans, rather than direct aid alone, to help families finance their own water and sanitation solutions. In 1990, White founded WaterPartners, which later merged with Matt Damon's H2O Africa Foundation in 2009 to form Water.org. "Gary never looked at water as just an engineering problem. He looked at it as a human one," said Matt Damon, co-founder of Water.org. "He asked a different question: not just how do we build more infrastructure for safe water, but how do we make sure people can actually access that water. That shift - and the work of countless partners who believed in it - is why, today, 92 million people have gained access to safe water or sanitation through Water.org's solutions." Over the past three decades, White has helped build Water.org from a small U.S.-based nonprofit into a global organization led by experts working in the 15 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Today, the organization offers a portfolio of smart solutions that break down the barriers between people living in poverty and access to safe water and sanitation: through WaterCredit, Water.org enables small, affordable loans for household access; through WaterEquity, it uses impact investing to bring in more capital; and through WaterConnect, it develops infrastructure to expand reach. To date, Water.org has helped empower more than 92 million people with access to safe water or sanitation - the result of thousands of team members, partners, funders, and communities working together to advance practical solutions at scale. "The Hoover Medal is reserved for engineers whose work has changed the trajectory of a global challenge, and Gary White's is exactly that kind of achievement," said David Soukup, Secretary of the Hoover Board. "Over more than three decades, White pioneered a model for water and sanitation financing that has since been adopted across the sector and changed millions of lives. Few water and sanitation engineers have received this recognition, and this year's Hoover Medal Board was proud to award it to someone whose work exemplifies what the medal was created to honor." About the Hoover Medal The Hoover Medal is one of the engineering profession's highest humanitarian honors. Established in 1929, it is named for its first recipient, engineer Herbert Hoover, who led relief efforts that brought food, clothing and supplies to tens of millions of people in Europe during and after World War I. It recognizes engineers who have provided outstanding civic, humanitarian or public service beyond their engineering careers and professional duties. The medal is awarded jointly by five major engineering societies, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The focus is not just technical innovation alone, but rather humanitarian leadership, civic engagement, philanthropy, education, public service and other activities that improve society. About Water.org Water.org is a global nonprofit organization that has positively transformed more than 92 million lives around the world through access to safe water and sanitation. Founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, Water.org pioneers market-driven solutions to the global water crisis. For more than 30 years, we have helped give women hope, children health, and families bright futures. Learn more at https://water.org. Media Contacts Cate McGeady, Senior Public Relations Manager, Water.org [email protected] | 978-495-2029 David Soukup, Secretary of the Hoover Board [email protected] | 212-591-73974 SOURCE Water.org