Business
More Candidates Expected For OPEC Top Post
Two more countries are likely to field candidates for OPEC’s next secretary general, OPEC sources said recently, widening a competition within the oil producer cartel for its top administrative post.
Ecuador, OPEC’s smallest producer, has nominated a potential successor to current OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri, whose term ends at the end of 2012, a source said. Iran, its second-largest producer, is expected to do so.
“There is a process for nominating a candidate and Iran is always active on this issue”, an OPEC delegate who declined to be identified told The Tide.
The secretary general, the main representative on the world stage of the 12-member Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, helps formulate the group’s output policy and is in charge of OPEC’s Vienna secretariat.
Candidates from Iran and Ecuador would bring the number of countries competing for the role to four. OPEC will discuss the issue at its next meeting on June 14 in Vienna.
The two declared candidates are Thamir Ghadhban, the top energy adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuria al-Maliki, and Saudi Arabia’s longtime OPEC governor, Majid Al-Moneef.
OPEC appears to have given itself little formal meeting time when it meets on June 14 for discussions on the secretary general and its production policy. Still, ministers will have plenty of scope to talk on the sidelines.
According to an agenda on OPEC’s website, the OPEC meeting starts at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT) Vienna time on June 14 and ends with a news conference at 5 p.m. The closed session of ministers, where policy is usually decided, is scheduled to last just one hour.
“The timings look pretty tight”, said on OPEC source.
OPEC delegates have said oil ministers will probably not change oil output at the meeting given uncertainties such as downside risks to the economy.
The group has also struggled to agree on a secretary general candidate in the past.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.