Ripple now has the green light to run a federally chartered trust bank and this comes after the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) granted final approval to Ripple National Trust Bank on October 26. The full approval closes out a process the company kicked off with its application in July last year.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse took to X to share the news, saying crypto and banks “work better together.” The final sign off comes less than a year after Ripple received conditional approval in December, 2015.
Big news heading into @RippleSwell: the @USOCC has granted final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank.
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) October 26, 2026
This gives Ripple a federally supervised platform to support $RLUSD and provide digital asset custody to enterprises.
We’ve always said crypto and banks work better…
RLUSD Reserves Move Under Federal Supervision
The new trust bank has a narrow job, but an extremely important one. According to Ripple’s announcement, it will look after the reserves backing Ripple USD (RLUSD) and act as collateral trustee of those reserves on behalf of RLUSD holders. It can also store digital assets for large institutional clients.
Issuance will remain the same with the Standard Custody & Trust Company, Ripple’s limited purpose trust company regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). This puts two regulators overseeing different aspects of the stablecoin’s operations, with New York supervising issuance and the OCC supervising its backing reserves.
RLUSD is Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin which runs on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum. Since launching in December 2024, the stablecoin has grown to a marketcap of $2.5 billion. When looking at the broader stablecoin market, that’s still a small slice of a $310 billion market. Data from Artemis shows that RLUSD makes up about 0.8% of total supply, while around 82% of the market continues to be dominated by Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC.
Its size compared to the rest of the market is why this approval is significant for Ripple. A late entrant into the market only has few ways of drawing corporate and bank treasuries from the established and dominant players, and regulatory credibility is one of them.
A Trust Charter Comes With Clear Limits
It’s important to state that Ripple did not get a commercial banking license here which means Ripple National Trust Bank cannot take deposits or make loans. Like most national trust banks, it won’t carry FDIC insurance.
What the charter does give Ripple is a federal supervisor over the part of the business institutions scrutinize most closely, which is whether the dollars backing a stablecoin actually exist and are kept separate. A corporate treasurer or fund comparing RLUSD with other dollar tokens can now point to a federally supervised reserve trustee.
Ripple Joins Circle While Coinbase Waits
Only a handful of crypto firms have made it this far. Circle secured final OCC approval in July, putting USDC reserves under federal supervision. Coinbase is still sitting on the conditional approval it received in April, while Crypto.com and Stripe-owned Bridge have been at the same stage since February.
The wave of charters hasn’t been welcomed by everyone in Washington. In May, Sen. Elizabeth Warren argued the approvals violate the National Bank Act and create risks for the financial system. Crypto advocacy group The Digital Chamber pushed back, noting that trust charters only cover fiduciary activities and that the firms opted into federal oversight on their own.
The Fed Master Account Is the Next Milestone
XRP traders looking for a direct price catalyst won’t find much here. The approval says far more about Ripple as a company, which has steadily built out regulated infrastructure since acquiring Standard Custody in mid-2024, launching RLUSD and adding prime brokerage through Ripple Prime.
The bigger prize hasn’t arrived yet. Alongside its charter bid in July 2025, Ripple applied for a Federal Reserve master account. Approval would let Ripple hold RLUSD reserves directly at the Fed and settle payments without relying on intermediary banks.
Crypto firms have historically struggled to get one. Custodia Bank spent years fighting the Fed over its own request and was ultimately denied. Ripple now walks into that review with a final federal charter in hand, something Custodia never had. The application is still pending.
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