Ripple Wins Final OCC Approval for Its National Trust Bank

Ripple has received final approval from the OCC for Ripple National Trust Bank (RNTB), a national trust bank under federal supervision in the United States. Announced on October 27, 2026, the decision strengthens the regulatory framework around the RLUSD stablecoin, but it no longer gives Ripple an exclusive edge as rival applicants multiply.

A final authorization with clearly defined limits

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the federal agency that supervises national banks, has formally approved the creation of Ripple National Trust Bank. Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple’s chief executive, announced the decision on X. The application was filed in July 2025 and received conditional approval in December 2025. At that stage, the OCC specified that the bank could only open once all pre-opening conditions were met and a final authorization was granted. Until then, the agency retained the right to amend, suspend or revoke its approval.

In its statement, Ripple said it has spent more than a decade building regulated financial infrastructure that institutions can use at scale. The company argues that a national trust charter gives RLUSD and its institutional products in payments, custody and capital markets a stronger foundation.

A defined structure and scope of activity

The bank will be led by Ripple Labs Inc., a Delaware corporation incorporated in 2012 and the direct parent company of RNTB. Its proposed headquarters are in New York, New York, and the proposed charter number is 25364. The OCC also granted a waiver for five directors who would not need to reside in the United States. RNTB must also obtain stock in a Federal Reserve Bank.

• RNTB will not be a conventional retail bank and will not issue RLUSD.
• It will manage, on instruction, a pool of segregated liquid assets serving as RLUSD reserves.
• It will act as fiduciary trustee for collateral held for RLUSD holders.
• It will provide cryptocurrency custody services to Ripple affiliates and unaffiliated institutional clients.

RLUSD: dual supervision as a selling point

RLUSD launched in December 2024. Ripple says it surpassed $1 billion in market capitalization in less than a year and is used in its payment solutions, as well as posted as collateral by Ripple Prime and other prime brokers. CoinDesk reported that its market value had reached roughly $2.5 billion at the time of the final approval, placing it among the top 50 stablecoins.

Reserves are backed by U.S. dollar deposits, U.S. government securities and other cash-equivalent assets. RLUSD will continue to be issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, LLC (SCTC), a Ripple subsidiary chartered as a New York limited-purpose trust company and regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. With RNTB, the structure will therefore be subject to dual federal and state oversight. Ripple argues that this combination provides a higher level of transparency and compliance than other stablecoin issuers.

“Conditional approval of our trust bank charter is a massive step forward, setting the highest standard for stablecoin compliance with both federal and state supervision.”

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO, Ripple

The move also fits within the framework of the GENIUS Act, signed by President Donald Trump in July 2025 to set a U.S. regulatory framework for stablecoins. Ripple says it will keep working with the OCC and New York regulators during RNTB’s start-up phase.

A crypto trust bank market in expansion

In December 2025, the OCC conditionally approved five digital-asset companies. Circle received a new de novo charter, as Ripple did, while Paxos Trust Company, BitGo Bank & Trust and Fidelity Digital Assets sought to convert their charters into national ones. These approvals joined a population of 60 national trust banks already established, according to Banking Dive. Coinbase and its subsidiary Stripe Bridge were not approved in that decision.

Competition erodes Ripple’s head start

On September 18, 2026, the OCC granted conditional approvals to three more institutions. Bastion Platforms Trust Company, backed notably by Coinbase Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, plans to convert its New York trust company into a national trust bank. It offers white-label stablecoin issuance, wallets, custody, conversion and support for regulated issuers, and Sony Bank’s global stablecoin initiative already uses its infrastructure. Agora National Trust Bank plans to issue dollar-backed stablecoins and to move issuance of its AUSD stablecoin from its Bermuda entity to the U.S. bank. Catena Trust Bank targets management, execution, custody and settlement services for currencies, securities and digital assets, with a platform built for AI agents and the companies that control them.

These approvals are not opening authorizations. Agora and Catena must raise their required capital, put compliance and security systems in place, pass pre-opening examinations and obtain the OCC’s final approval. Bastion must meet its conditions and complete its conversion within six months. Agora’s and Catena’s preliminary approvals expire if they do not open within 18 months, unless the OCC extends the deadline. Ripple keeps its payments network, its institutional relationships and control of RLUSD, but its regulatory advantage is now less exclusive.

Objections, legal history and the OCC’s response

The decision rested on a public review of the application. The agency received nine comment letters: four from groups representing banks, one from a bank, one from a technology coalition, one from a smart plumbing technology company and two from community groups. Several commenters challenged the OCC’s authority or argued that public information and the consultation period were insufficient. The agency responded that Ripple had filed all required public information and that it had considered all comments, including those received after the official deadline.

The OCC’s position

The OCC recalled that national trust banks have existed since 1978, when Congress confirmed the agency’s authority to charter banks limited to trust activities. As of September 30, 2025, uninsured national trust banks supervised by the OCC reported the following assets under administration.

Comptroller Jonathan Gould defended the approach at the Blockchain Association, noting that national trust banks have long performed non-fiduciary custody activities.

“Custody and safekeeping services have existed for decades, electronically. There is simply no justification for treating digital assets differently.”

Jonathan Gould, Comptroller of the Currency

The OCC dismissed several objections. Because RNTB will not issue stablecoins, questions about issuance and the Community Reinvestment Act were moot, and the bank will not be an FDIC-insured deposit institution. The agency also concluded that its planned activities generally fall outside the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, while saying it will monitor their compliance. Transactions with affiliates will be reviewed under sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act and Regulation W.

Criticism from the banking sector

The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) opposed the application on August 4, 2025. It argued that RNTB could function like a deposit-taking institution, draw funds away from banks and bypass the requirements applicable to full-service banks, since customer funds held at a national trust bank are not covered by FDIC insurance. The ICBA cited a Treasury Department TBAC presentation of April 30, 2025, estimating that up to $6.6 trillion in deposits could migrate to stablecoins if they offered a yield.

The ICBA also pointed to the 2015 settlement between Ripple Labs and XRP II, which carried a civil penalty of $700,000 after allegations that the company failed to register with FinCEN as a money transmitter and maintained insufficient controls. It cited the SEC case, which ended in 2023 with a permanent injunction and a $125 million civil penalty. A settlement proposed in May 2025 to reduce that penalty to $50 million was rejected by the court, which held that the parties could not alter the final judgment. In the ICBA’s view, this record justifies enhanced scrutiny of Ripple Labs’ capacity to hold a national trust bank.

Greg Baer, chief executive of the Bank Policy Institute, said the decision leaves “significant questions unanswered” about whether requirements imposed on applicants are adequately tailored to their activities. Anchorage Digital Bank, which received the first national trust charter dedicated to crypto in January 2021, considers the arrival of new competitors “very late”. Its chief executive, Nathan McCauley, said:

“Anchorage Digital Bank became the first federally chartered crypto bank in January 2021, and we never wanted to be the last. This is very late.”

Nathan McCauley, CEO, Anchorage Digital Bank

Outlook and scenarios

RNTB’s authorization turns a stablecoin strategy into a supervised federal banking activity. Ripple claims more than 90% of the global foreign exchange market and more than $95 billion in processed volume. These figures come from the company and were not independently verified for this analysis.

The coming months will depend on Ripple’s ability to satisfy opening conditions, to demonstrate a clear separation between payments, custody and issuance, and to win institutional adoption. Three scenarios stand out:

• Base case: RNTB opens on schedule, RLUSD gains gradual use as collateral, and dual supervision becomes a commercial argument.
• Upside case: rapid adoption of RLUSD by prime brokers, with sustained growth beyond the $2.5 billion mark.
• Downside case: delayed opening, a challenge to the conditions by the OCC or Congress, or competitive pressure from new entrants on reserves and custody.

Sources

• CoinDesk, October 27, 2026
• Yahoo Finance, analysis of Ripple’s banking edge
• Banking Dive, OCC charter approvals
• Ripple, federal approval press release
• OCC, news release NR-OCC-2025-125B
• ICBA, objection to Ripple’s application, August 2025

Cet article est publié à titre informatif et éducatif. Il ne constitue en aucun cas un conseil en investissement. Faites vos propres recherches (DYOR) avant toute décision.

This article is published for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice. Do your own research (DYOR) before making any decision.