Trust, but verify: Ripple’s federal trust charter is officially final

Ripple National Trust Bank (RNTB) has received final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), completing its chartering process after receiving conditional approval in December 2025, Ripple announced Monday.

The federally supervised institution is authorized to manage reserves backing Ripple USD (RLUSD), act as collateral trustee for the benefit of RLUSD holders and provide digital asset custody banking services to enterprise customers, according to Ripple. 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.

“We’ve always said crypto and banks work better together — this is what that looks like. Real innovation, real accountability, federal oversight,” Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said on X on Monday.

Ripple follows Circle, which secured final OCC approval in July. Other crypto firms remain at the conditional approval stage, including Coinbase, which received a preliminary green light in April, and Crypto.com and Stripe-owned Bridge, which received conditional approvals in February. BitGo and Fidelity Digital Assets have also been seeking federally regulated trust banking.

A national trust bank is a federally chartered institution focused on holding and managing assets on behalf of clients. Unlike a typical commercial bank, most national trust banks do not accept deposits or make loans and do not carry Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insurance, according to the OCC.

The announcement came ahead of Ripple Swell 2026 in New York, where Ripple is expanding its institutional financial services. XRP’s price recovered after a bearish day following the regulatory milestone.