Ripple won final U.S. approval to launch its own national trust bank

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The bank will manage reserves backing the RLUSD stablecoin and offer digital asset custody once it opens

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Ripple received final approval to charter Ripple National Trust Bank, a federally supervised national trust bank, from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the company said. The regulator announced the approval on Monday.

The bank's approved activities include managing the segregated reserves that support Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin and acting as collateral trustee of those reserves for RLUSD holders. It will also offer custody of digital assets in a fiduciary capacity once it opens, the company said.

"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 a statement. "A national trust charter gives us an even stronger foundation for RLUSD and the institutional products we're building across payments, custody and capital markets."

RLUSD will keep originating with Standard Custody & Trust Company, Ripple's limited purpose trust company regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services. The new bank adds supervision by the OCC to the framework supporting the stablecoin.

The final approval follows conditional OCC approval in December 2025. Ripple applied for the charter in July 2025, according to CoinDesk.

Ripple launched RLUSD in December 2024. The stablecoin serves Ripple's payments systems, and it also functions as collateral in Ripple Prime. BNY is its primary reserve custodian, and Ripple publishes monthly independent third-party attestations of its circulating supply and reserves. RLUSD is supported by dollar deposits, securities issued by the U.S. government and other cash equivalents, the company said.

Most national trust banks refrain from accepting deposits and extending credit, and they fall outside Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation coverage, according to Bloomberg.

Ripple said it will work with the OCC, New York's regulator and other agencies during the bank's launch and the U.S. rollout of the framework established by the GENIUS Act. The OCC released its finalized regulations last week to put the stablecoin law into effect, according to Bloomberg.

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