Ripple said on October 26, 2026, that the OCC had given final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank, clearing the last major federal hurdle for a structure that will oversee part of the company’s stablecoin business. The announcement turns the bank from a conditional approval into a live federal trust-bank operation, with reserve management and institutional custody moving under OCC supervision.
The timing matters because Ripple has spent months building toward this point. The OCC granted conditional approval on December 12, 2025, and now the company says the authorization is final. That makes the Ripple National Trust Bank Launch more than a regulatory milestone on paper; it is the step that lets Ripple put a federally supervised trust bank around the reserves backing RLUSD, its roughly $2.5 billion stablecoin.
Jack McDonald described the authorization as “much more than a charter on paper,” and that is the practical shift here. The new trust bank will manage the reserves backing RLUSD and handle trusteeship and enterprise custody for institutional clients, while Ripple’s New York-regulated subsidiary continues issuing RLUSD. In other words, the reserve side of the stablecoin stack is moving into one federally supervised lane, but the issuance side stays where it is.
That split is the detail that keeps the announcement from being a full handoff. Ripple National Trust Bank will operate under the OCC, but it is not taking over RLUSD issuance. Standard Custody & Trust Company will continue issuing the stablecoin, which means Ripple is separating the roles instead of merging them into one entity. The structure gives the company a federal trust-bank framework for reserves and custody while leaving issuance in its existing setup.
Stuart Alderoty said Ripple had chosen to build “within the regulatory perimeter, not around it,” and the company’s latest approval fits that posture. Ripple and Circle were among five digital asset businesses that received initial authorization for national trust-bank charters in December 2025, alongside BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos. Comptroller Jonathan Gould said those applications had undergone rigorous review, and Ripple’s final approval shows the review has now translated into operating authority. What comes next is execution: the trust bank has to run reserve management, trusteeship and fiduciary digital asset custody in practice, not just in filing language.
For RLUSD, that means the company now has a stronger federal foundation on one side of the business and a separate issuer on the other. That split may look technical, but it is the point of the design. Ripple has won the right to move institutional custody and reserve management into a federally supervised trust bank, while keeping the stablecoin itself in circulation through Standard Custody & Trust Company.
