Ripple gets a final go-ahead to launch its own U.S. national trust bank

Ripple, a fintech company building blockchain and crypto for cross-border transactions, and tokenization, can now run a specialized bank under U.S. federal supervision.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the regulator that oversees national banks, has approved Ripple National Trust Bank (RNTB), Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced on X late Monday.

In other words, one of crypto’s biggest players now has a traditional banking-style license, signaling that digital assets are being pulled further into the regulated traditional financial system. Ripple first applied for the banking license in July 2025, and the OCC gave it conditional approval that December before signing off fully this week.

The approval is consistent with Garlinghouse’s long-running pitch that crypto companies should build products that banks and big institutions can actually use.

“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,” Garlinghouse said in the press release. “We’ve spent over a decade building regulated financial infrastructure that institutions can actually use at scale. 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.”

The RNTB will be tasked with managing the reserves backing Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin. These reserves are essentially real money and assets that provide the token its value.

The bank will also act as a trustee for these reserves and offer regulated custody services, which means it will safely hold digital assets for big companies as they use crypto in payments, trading, and treasury management.

RLUSD will still be issued by Ripple’s New York-regulated unit, Standard Custody & Trust Company. The new bank adds another layer of oversight: RLUSD now has both state and federal regulators watching over parts of its setup.

RLUSD debuted in December 2024 and has since grown to a market value of about $2.5 billion, putting it among the world's top 50 stablecoins. It is used in Ripple’s payments business and as collateral on Ripple Prime. The stablecoin is backed by U.S. dollar deposits, U.S. government securities, and other cash-like assets. BNY holds most of those reserves. Ripple also uses XRP, the world’s 5th largest digital asset, to facilitate cross-border transactions.

Ripple said it will keep working with the OCC, New York regulators, and others as the bank starts operating, especially as the U.S. rolls out its new stablecoin rules under the GENIUS Act.