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Ripple National Trust Bank gets final OCC approval, pulling RLUSD under federal oversight

Garlinghouse announces OCC final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank; it will manage RLUSD reserves and offer digital-asset custody. RLUSD issuance stays at NYDFS Standard Custody.

by 4 min read
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Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced late Monday that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has granted final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank (RNTB), converting the conditional charter the agency issued on December 12, 2025 into a live national trust charter. The approval is reported by CoinDesk and The Block, both citing Garlinghouse's statement; neither story links an OCC release.

What RNTB is authorized to do

Per Ripple's statement as reported, the new entity will:

  • Manage the segregated reserves backing the RLUSD stablecoin.
  • Act as collateral trustee of those reserves on behalf of RLUSD holders.
  • Provide fiduciary digital-asset custody services for enterprise clients.

A national trust charter does not permit deposit-taking or lending — a distinction The Block highlights.

Issuance stays with the New York subsidiary. RLUSD will continue to be issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, Ripple's NYDFS-regulated limited-purpose trust company. The federal layer at RNTB sits on top of that NYDFS issuance stack, not in place of it.

Numbers around the stablecoin

  • RLUSD launched: December 2024.
  • Market cap: about $2.5 billion at the time of the approval, per CoinDesk — Ripple's own figure places it in the top 50 stablecoins globally.
  • Charter timeline: application filed July 2025 → conditional approval December 12, 2025 → final approval reported the week of October 27, 2026 (less than one year between the two).

The OCC trust-bank track so far

RNTB is the latest to walk the full OCC conditional-to-final path. Anchorage Digital remains the only crypto firm operating as a national bank (not a trust bank). Several peers — including Circle, Paxos, BitGo — have received conditional charters since mid-2025 but have not been reported as fully operational national trust banks. Garlinghouse's quote framed the outcome plainly: "We've always said crypto and banks work better together — this is what that looks like."

Why this matters, concretely

  • Federal oversight on a top-50 stablecoin's reserves. With RNTB operational, RLUSD becomes one of the few dollar stablecoins whose reserve custody sits inside a federally supervised, fiduciary-chartered entity. Reserves still live at Standard Custody, but RNTB adds the OCC layer.
  • Dual-charter structure. NYDFS at Standard Custody for issuance; OCC at RNTB for reserve custody and institutional digital-asset custody. This is the architecture several non-bank stablecoin issuers have been trying to assemble under the GENIUS Act's rollout; Ripple is the first large non-bank issuer reported to have completed both legs.
  • Trust charter, not a bank. Enterprises who want custody from a federally supervised entity, without the deposit-insurance and lending apparatus of a full national bank, get a direct option.

What to watch

  1. The OCC's own announcement. Neither CoinDesk nor The Block links a public OCC release at time of writing. The agency typically publishes licensing decisions on its Interpretive Letters index.
  2. Reserves migration schedule. The transfer of RLUSD reserves (or the trustee role over them) from the Standard Custody structure to the RNTB envelope will determine when the federal custody layer is live in substance, not just in charter.
  3. RLUSD circulation vs. reserve breakdown. The company's $2.5 B figure is market cap; whether that figure matches reported reserve attestations under the new OCC lens is the next transparency test.
  4. Litigation pressure. The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) suit challenging OCC trust-charter grants to crypto firms remains the most live legal challenge; RNTB's final approval raises the stakes of that case.

Context

Final OCC approval for a crypto-adjacent national trust bank, carrying a top-50 stablecoin's reserves under federal fiduciary supervision, is a structurally larger moment than the long run of conditional approvals that preceded it. Anchorage held the only "fully operational" status until this week; a second firm reaching it — and one carrying a $2.5 B stablecoin rather than custody-only operations — materially expands what the OCC's trust-bank charter is being used for.

Sources:

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