Ripple has received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Treasury Department bureau that charters and supervises national banks, to establish Ripple National Trust Bank, a federally supervised national trust bank, the company said on Monday, Oct. 26. Final approval allows the institution, conditionally chartered in December 2025, to begin operations under full OCC oversight.

The decision completes a process that began when the OCC conditionally approved Ripple's application, alongside those of crypto-focused firms Circle, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets and BitGo — a milestone that arrives roughly 10 months later, just ahead of Ripple's Swell conference.

Once open, the bank will manage the segregated reserves backing the Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin, act as collateral trustee of those reserves for the benefit of RLUSD holders, and provide fiduciary digital asset custody services to enterprises. Trust charters authorize fiduciary functions such as custody and asset servicing rather than the deposit- and lending-led model of full-service commercial banks — a scope that maps directly onto the reserve-management and custody roles Ripple has outlined.

RLUSD will continue to be issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, Ripple's limited purpose trust company regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), meaning the stablecoin will now sit under both state and federal supervision. The arrangement places the token under the oversight of both the NYDFS and the OCC — and, for holders, puts the day-to-day management of the reserves behind the token inside a federally supervised entity.

"For years, we've said crypto and banks work better together. Final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank is what that looks like in practice," Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in the company's announcement. In a post on X, he added: "The revolution isn't happening outside the system. It's happening from within it."

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…

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) October 26, 2026

Launched in December 2024, RLUSD — short for Ripple USD — has a market capitalization of about $2.6 billion, according to CoinGecko. Ripple says the stablecoin is used across its payments network and as collateral within its Ripple Prime brokerage. BNY serves as the stablecoin's primary reserve custodian.

XRP, the cryptocurrency closely associated with Ripple, rose 0.5% over the past 24 hours to $1.29, according to CoinGecko data, making it one of only two top-10 coins by market capitalization to gain on the day alongside privacy-focused Zcash.

Crypto's bank charter fight

The approval comes as the OCC's crypto-focused charters face mounting legal and political headwinds — a fight with stakes well beyond Ripple, as these charters have become one of the main channels for crypto firms to operate inside the federal banking perimeter. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has argued in a letter to Comptroller Jonathan Gould that the approvals for firms including Coinbase and Ripple violated the National Bank Act, calling the charters illegal. "These companies are effectively crypto banks that want to evade the fundamental safeguards and obligations that come with being a bank," she wrote.

The Digital Chamber, a crypto industry trade group, pushed back, urging the OCC to "defend these charter approvals and continue developing clear supervisory expectations for trust banks."

Earlier this month, the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group representing community banks, sued the OCC in federal court, arguing that the charters have become "a side door into the banking system for crypto firms" that avoid the capital requirements, consolidated supervision and FDIC insurance that bind traditional banks.

Ripple said it will continue working with the OCC, NYDFS and other regulators as the new bank begins operations and as the United States implements the federal GENIUS Act's stablecoin framework, which sets federal reserve and oversight requirements for payment stablecoin issuers. How the ICBA's lawsuit progresses and how quickly Ripple National Trust Bank moves from final approval to full operations are the near-term markers to watch as that framework takes shape.