Ripple said on October 26, 2026 that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had given final approval to establish Ripple National Trust Bank, a federally supervised national trust bank. The institution is designed to manage segregated reserves supporting the Ripple USD stablecoin, RLUSD, serve as collateral trustee for those reserves and provide fiduciary digital asset custody to enterprises. Ripple also said RLUSD would remain issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, a New York Department of Financial Services-regulated limited purpose trust company. That structure places the stablecoin under both state and federal supervision.
The approval follows the OCC’s conditional approval of Ripple’s application in December 2025, when the regulator also advanced applications from Circle, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets and BitGo. It moves Ripple closer to becoming an important operator in the growing market for regulated payment stablecoins and institutional digital asset services.
What Ripple National Trust Bank Will Do
Once operational, Ripple National Trust Bank will have a defined set of responsibilities centered on reserves, collateral and custody. Its first function will be to manage the segregated reserves backing RLUSD. It will also act as collateral trustee of those reserves for the benefit of RLUSD holders. In addition, the bank is expected to provide fiduciary digital asset custody services to corporate clients seeking regulated oversight of their holdings.
That division of responsibilities matters. Ripple will not replace Standard Custody & Trust Company as the issuer of RLUSD. Instead, the new bank will support the asset beneath the issuer, providing a federal layer of oversight for reserve administration and institutional custody. Ripple says BNY remains the primary custodian for RLUSD’s reserves, while Ripple National Trust Bank will oversee the trust and collateral structure around them.
RLUSD launched in December 2024 and has a market capitalization of about $2.6 billion, according to CoinGecko. Ripple places the figure at approximately $2.5 billion. The company says RLUSD is used across its payments network and as collateral in the Ripple Prime institutional brokerage. These figures provide an early scale indicator for the charter, but they do not establish how much activity will migrate to the new bank after it opens.
A Regulatory Shift for Digital Asset Firms
Ripple’s final approval reflects a broader change in US banking policy. The OCC has approved or conditionally approved more than 20 national trust bank charters during the second Trump administration, including more than a dozen applications from crypto firms. Earlier administrations were generally more skeptical of giving digital asset companies access to national banking charters.
National trust banks are not full-service banks and are not federally insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Their capital, activity and supervisory requirements can differ from those imposed on traditional deposit-taking institutions. That distinction has produced a legal and political fight over whether the OCC is using the charter to bring legitimate custody and stablecoin services under federal oversight or opening a weaker route into banking.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote to Comptroller Jonathan Gould arguing that approvals involving Ripple and Coinbase violated the National Bank Act. She said the companies are effectively crypto banks seeking to avoid the safeguards and obligations that apply to banks. Meanwhile, the Independent Community Bankers of America sued the OCC in federal court, contending that the charters allow crypto firms to bypass capital requirements, consolidated supervision and deposit insurance.
The dispute focuses in part on whether a national trust company can conduct standalone nonfiduciary custody without becoming subject to broader banking regulation. Congress amended the National Bank Act in 1978 to permit national banks to focus on trust activities and related activities. In 2021, Gould, then the OCC’s general counsel, said in Interpretive Letter 1176 that certain cryptocurrency custody services could qualify as related activities. Several charter approvals rely on that interpretation.
After the Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference in 2024, judges are expected to decide independently whether the OCC’s interpretation is legally valid. That makes Ripple National Trust Bank’s operational launch meaningful even if its charter survives, but the surrounding litigation could also reshape how narrowly trust powers may be used.
RLUSD Gains a Path Into Institutional Finance
Final OCC approval arrives as Ripple is expanding a series of institutional relationships around RLUSD. BNY expanded its digital asset custody platform to support XRP and RLUSD. The companies are also examining a service that would allow BNY clients to mint and redeem RLUSD directly through the bank, although no launch date has been announced. Ripple said BNY’s expanded custody role could eventually support more tokenized assets and investment products issued on the XRP Ledger.
Ripple and working-capital platform C2FO also outlined a plan to finance approved invoices with RLUSD settling on the XRP Ledger. The proposed process targets suppliers that wait 30, 60 or 90 days for payment and could deliver funds within seconds. C2FO says its early payment programs have facilitated more than $250 billion in working capital over their history, but that figure does not represent volume processed through the XRP Ledger. Neither company disclosed committed financing value or a completed production transaction.
Robinhood’s agreement covers RLUSD for institutional settlement, Ripple Treasury for cash and liquidity management and Ripple Prime for financing across roughly 20 digital assets. Robinhood’s crypto general manager Johann Kerbrat said the arrangement gives Robinhood, Ripple and Bitstamp access to RLUSD, although neither side disclosed a contract value or revenue target. The announcement referenced 28.6 million funded Robinhood customers globally but did not specify how many would use RLUSD.
Other institutions are testing the XRP Ledger as an issuance and settlement venue. Aviva Investors launched a tokenized share class of its Sterling Liquidity Fund with a 50 million pound commitment. Ripple says more than $1 billion of RLUSD has been issued on the ledger, where transactions settle in roughly three to five seconds. These developments show why regulators and banks are examining the model, but announced partnerships and pilots should not be confused with broad commercial adoption.
What the Approval Changes for Customers
For institutional users, the immediate benefit is a clearer regulated structure around RLUSD. Reserve segregation and federal supervision can make the stablecoin more suitable for settlement, collateral and treasury workflows that require documented custody and oversight. The new bank may also give enterprises a federally supervised route for fiduciary digital asset custody without asking a traditional bank to add the activity to its broader deposit business.
The approval does not guarantee lower fees, immediate minting and redemption at BNY or guaranteed settlement speed for every transaction. Ripple has not provided an opening date for Ripple National Trust Bank, and several planned services remain under development. Nor does federal supervision convert RLUSD into a bank deposit. The token remains exposed to issuer, custodian, smart contract, liquidity and counterparty risks even when its reserves are held in segregated arrangements.
XRP rose 0.5 percent over 24 hours to $1.29, according to CoinGecko, making it one of only two top-ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization to gain on the day alongside Zcash. That modest move should not be overstated as proof that investors have already priced in the charter’s full potential. The larger question is whether trust bank oversight can accelerate institutional use of RLUSD while the OCC faces legal challenges over its authority.
Ripple National Trust Bank Enters a Contested Market
Ripple said it will continue working with the OCC, the New York regulator and other authorities as the bank begins operations and as the United States implements the GENIUS Act stablecoin framework. Brad Garlinghouse said final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank represented the view that crypto and banks work better together. The Digital Chamber has asked the OCC to defend the approvals and develop clear supervisory expectations for trust banks.
Ultimately, Ripple National Trust Bank gives RLUSD infrastructure a level of federal oversight that could matter in markets where institutional risk committees place more weight on regulatory structure than token marketing. The charter is a major operational step, but its value will be measured by reserve controls, custody standards, partner adoption and whether it survives broader litigation. Ripple National Trust Bank enters a market with clear opportunity, substantial compliance costs and unresolved questions over the boundaries of trust banking.