Ripple National Trust Bank Wins Final OCC Approval for RLUSD Reserves
The OCC has granted final approval to Ripple National Trust Bank, completing a process that began with a conditional approval in December 2025. The New York-based trust bank will manage RLUSD reserves and offer enterprise custody, but will not take deposits or make loans.
Reserves backing Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin will now be managed under a federal bank charter. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has granted final approval to Ripple National Trust Bank (RNTB), clearing the New York-based institution to handle those reserves and offer crypto custody to enterprise clients.
The decision completes a process that began with a conditional approval on December 12, 2025. RNTB's proposed charter number is 25364.
A fiduciary-only charter
The national trust charter does two things. It lets RNTB manage the reserves backing RLUSD, and it lets the bank provide custody and fiduciary services to enterprise customers holding digital assets.
Its scope is narrow by design. Under the terms of the approval, RNTB will not take deposits and will not make loans, so its business rests on custody and reserve management rather than conventional banking.
The issuer does not change. RLUSD is currently issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, LLC, which is regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), and it keeps that New York-regulated issuer while the national trust bank handles reserves and fiduciary custody. The result is reserve arrangements that sit under both OCC and NYDFS oversight.
Part of a wider charter wave
Ripple was not alone in December. On the same day as its conditional approval, the OCC also granted conditional approvals to Circle, Paxos and BitGo; Circle's proposed entity is First National Digital Currency Bank. Those approvals followed enactment of the GENIUS Act in July 2025. As of late 2025, full authorization for Ripple was expected by March 2026.
What it means for the market
The charter puts Ripple in more direct competition with BitGo and Paxos and sharpens its rivalry with Circle, whose USDC has long been the compliance-friendly choice for institutions. The fiduciary-only limit also cuts the other way: growth depends on demand for custody and reserve management, since RNTB cannot build a lending business or gather deposits.
Other firms are also bringing federal supervision into stablecoin operations. Securitize, for example, will mint stablecoins directly with Anchorage Digital Bank, bringing OCC supervision to the cash leg of its trades. For RLUSD holders and institutional counterparties, the practical change is that the reserves backing the token will be managed by a federally chartered trust bank, alongside the existing state-level oversight of the issuer.
