Ripple secures final OCC approval for national trust bank to support RLUSD and crypto custody

Ripple has received final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish Ripple National Trust Bank (RNTB), a federally supervised national trust bank. The approval was announced on October 26, 2026. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse shared the news in a post on X.

The approval completes RNTB's organization process. The OCC gave conditional approval in December 2025, and Ripple's application dates back to July 2025. Final approval means Ripple can now operate the chartered institution.

Under the approved business plan, RNTB will manage the segregated reserves that back Ripple USD (RLUSD), Ripple's stablecoin. It will also act as collateral trustee of those reserves for the benefit of RLUSD holders. In addition, it will provide fiduciary digital asset custody services.

The issuance of RLUSD is not changing. The token 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). The new national charter adds federal OCC supervision on top of that existing state-level framework. Ripple describes this as part of building digital asset products within both state and federal regulatory frameworks.

In the announcement, Garlinghouse said Ripple has long argued that crypto firms and banks work better together. He described final approval for the trust bank as what that looks like in practice. He also said it gives Ripple a federally supervised platform to support RLUSD and provide digital asset custody to enterprises.

A national trust bank is not the same as a traditional commercial bank. It operates under a limited banking charter focused on authorized trust and fiduciary activities. The approval therefore lets Ripple bring more custody and reserve-management activity inside the U.S. banking system. It does not turn the company into a full-service commercial bank.

The timing matters for RLUSD's competitive position. Cryptopolitan reports that RLUSD makes up only about 0.8% of total stablecoin supply. The market is dominated by USDT and USDC. For a late entrant, regulatory credibility is one of the few ways to attract corporate and bank treasury business. Federal oversight of the reserves is intended to support that case with institutional users. Whether it leads to wider adoption remains to be seen.

The announcement came ahead of Ripple's Swell event, which Garlinghouse referenced in his post. It also follows a series of Ripple infrastructure and partnership announcements in recent weeks.

Market reaction was muted. FXStreet reported that XRP was hovering around $1.30 on Tuesday. It described the price action as capped, with technical hurdles still limiting upside. The approval is a regulatory and structural development rather than a direct market catalyst, and nothing about it guarantees any particular price movement.

The approval also fits a wider trend of crypto-focused companies seeking federal bank charters in the United States. Such charters give firms a federal regulator and a defined set of permitted activities. The tradeoff is ongoing supervision by the OCC. For Ripple, the practical effect is that reserve management and custody for RLUSD will now fall under federal examination, alongside the NYDFS oversight that already applies to the token's issuer.

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