The OCC signed off on October 26 for Ripple to open Ripple National Trust Bank as a national trust bank.
That puts the new entity under federal supervision, the same umbrella that covers big traditional banks. The final approval came after a conditional one the regulator gave in December 2025, and the timing lined up with the start of Ripple’s Swell conference this week.
A national trust bank sits in a different category from a regular commercial bank. It can hold assets for clients, manage reserves, and serve as a trustee, but it cannot take everyday deposits or hand out ordinary loans. Crypto firms have been chasing these charters because they give institutional customers a more recognizable regulatory setup, particularly around stablecoins and custody.
With the charter in place, RNTB will look after the segregated reserves that back RLUSD and act as trustee for the people who hold the stablecoin. It will also be able to offer custody services for digital assets. What it will not do is function as a full-service bank.
RLUSD is still issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, a limited-purpose trust company overseen by New York’s financial regulator. The new federal charter simply adds another layer of oversight to the existing structure.
“We’ve always said crypto and banks work better together—this is what that looks like. Real innovation, real accountability, federal oversight. The revolution isn’t happening outside the system. It’s happening from within it,” Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said.
He also pointed out that the company has spent more than ten years building regulated infrastructure that institutions can actually use and that the trust charter gives RLUSD and the rest of Ripple’s institutional products a firmer base.
RLUSD launched in December 2024 and now has a market cap of roughly $2.5–2.6 billion. It is already used inside Ripple’s payment flows and as collateral in Ripple Prime. After the news, XRP was up about half a percent on the day, trading near $1.29. CoinMarketCap put its market cap at around $82.5 billion with roughly $1.56 billion in 24-hour volume.
Ripple is not the first crypto company to get this kind of OCC approval. Revolut, Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo and Circle have already received similar clearances. For Ripple, the charter improves its standing with institutional clients in the U.S., even though the actual issuance of RLUSD remains with SCTC.
