The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the federal agency that charters and supervises national banks, has granted final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank, Ripple said on October 26, roughly ten months after the regulator conditionally approved the institution in December 2025. The charter centers on managing reserves for Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin — with no direct role for XRP in the bank's approved activities.

From Conditional Approval to an Opening Date

Final approval completes the organizing stage — in which an approved applicant puts its capital, governance and controls in place before opening — but Ripple National Trust, or RNTB, is not yet open. Ripple describes its custody services as starting once the bank opens and says it will keep working with regulators as operations begin. The company has not given a date.

Ripple was one of five crypto firms the OCC conditionally approved in December 2025. Circle and Ripple applied to establish new national trust banks, while BitGo, F Digital Assets and Paxos sought to convert existing state charters. BitGo and Circle reached final approval first, making Ripple's the second newly built bank from the group to clear the process. Before that round, Anchorage Digital was the only crypto firm holding a national trust charter.

Who Does What for RLUSD

Issuance of RLUSD stays in New York. Circle made the same choice: USDC issuance is moving to a New York limited-purpose trust company rather than Circle's national trust bank. Ripple's announcement does not explain its reasoning.

The trustee role is the one holders should watch. A collateral trustee holds rights over assets on behalf of the people they secure — in this case, RLUSD holders — and RNTB will owe those duties as an OCC-supervised fiduciary. Ripple has not yet published the trust terms, including how holders would claim the reserves if the issuer ran into trouble.

The charter has limits, too. A national trust bank is restricted to fiduciary work such as custody and trustee services, meaning RNTB will not take deposits or make loans like a commercial bank.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced the approval ahead of Swell, the company's annual conference:

Big news heading into @RippleSwell: the @USOCC has granted final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank. 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 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.

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse), October 26, 2026

What RLUSD Gets Out of It

RLUSD reached a $2.5 billion market value less than two years after its December 2024 launch. Ripple uses the token across its payments network and as collateral in Ripple Prime, its prime brokerage, and publishes monthly third-party attestations of supply and reserves. According to Ripple, those reserves are held in U.S. dollar deposits, Treasuries and cash equivalents.

For an institution vetting the token, the change amounts to a second supervisor. New York regulators oversee the issuer, and the OCC will oversee the entity that manages the reserves and holds them in trust for holders. Ripple ties that setup to the federal stablecoin framework the U.S. is still implementing under the GENIUS Act, the 2025 law that created the first federal framework for payment stablecoins. It is a different product from JPMorgan's JPM Coin, a tokenized bank deposit open only to approved clients.

Where XRP Fits

Nothing in RNTB's approved activities names XRP, the XRP Ledger or XRP-based settlement. The plan covers RLUSD reserves, the trustee role and fiduciary custody.

Custody is the one point of contact. Once the bank opens, institutional clients that hold XRP could keep it there, but that is safekeeping rather than new demand. A direct link would require a product that uses XRP or XRP Ledger liquidity, such as the ledger-level work in CSD BR's Brazilian fund-recordkeeping pilot.

Three things will show what the charter is worth in practice: an opening date for RNTB, its first custody clients, and whether RLUSD's monthly attestations begin naming the bank in the reserve chain.

This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial or investment advice. Regulatory approvals, product availability and institutional adoption may change over time.