Ripple has received final US approval to establish Ripple National Trust Bank, adding a federally supervised trust institution to its digital-asset business. The company's October 26 announcement is corroborated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's public charter record, which lists October 26, 2026 as the transaction's effective date.
The record identifies a New York institution with trust powers and charter number 25364. It separately records the original application received on July 2, 2025 and approval on December 12 that year. The new effective-date entry therefore belongs to a charter process that began last year, rather than a newly submitted application.
The issuer and trust bank have different roles
In its final-approval announcement, Ripple says the bank's authorised activities cover management of segregated RLUSD reserves, acting as collateral trustee for holders and fiduciary digital-asset custody. RLUSD will continue to be issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, a limited-purpose trust company regulated by New York's Department of Financial Services.
That separation matters when reading what has been approved. The federal trust-bank charter concerns reserve management and custody responsibilities; the company has not announced a transfer of stablecoin issuance to the new institution. Its statement describes custody services as authorised upon opening but does not give an opening date or customer fee schedule.
The OCC's December 2025 conditional decision supplies the published background to this approval. It described custody for affiliates and unaffiliated institutional customers, performed in a fiduciary capacity. It also distinguished the bank's reserve-management services from its collateral-trustee function for stablecoin holders.
What the published charter framework required
The December decision limited the proposed bank to trust-company operations and related activities specified in its business plan. It required the institution to remain outside the Bank Holding Company Act's definition of a bank. Those provisions describe a limited-purpose charter, not permission to undertake every activity associated with an ordinary commercial bank.
Its financial conditions included a minimum of $11.7 million in Tier 1 capital. The greater of half that capital or $5.85 million had to be held in eligible liquid assets. The decision also called for quarterly assessments of whether higher capital and liquidity were needed to support the institution's risks, business strategy and growth, including a cushion against unexpected losses.
A separate requirement covered 180 days of operating expenses in eligible liquid assets. The same assets could not be counted twice against that requirement and the capital-related liquidity requirement. The expenses calculation was to include fixed and variable costs in a distressed wind-down, rather than only the costs of continuing normal business.
The letter defined eligible assets narrowly. They had to exceed repayment liabilities, remain unpledged and free of claims, and exclude obligations of affiliates. Its permitted liquid-asset categories included unencumbered cash and short-maturity US government obligations. The capital and operating-expense conditions were specified for the first three years of operation.
Changes to the operating plan were also addressed. During organisation and the first three years, a significant departure from that plan required advance written notice of at least 60 days and an OCC determination of no objection before implementation. Changes to risk and operating limits counted as significant deviations under that provision.
Historical conditions are not a new October rulebook
These are terms of the published December decision, not newly announced October requirements. That decision also required arrangements for independent external audits, customer-information security and review of the final information-systems architecture before final approval. The October company statement and the public charter-status entry do not reproduce a replacement list of conditions.
The earlier decision expressly anticipated subsequent legal changes. It required the bank, where necessary, to conform, cease or divest its collateral-trustee structure or other activities to comply with the GENIUS Act, implementing regulations and other applicable law, as determined by the OCC. The charter was therefore not framed as an exemption from later regulatory requirements.
For readers assessing the announcement, the confirmed change is final charter approval and an effective transaction date. The public documents distinguish the trust institution from the stablecoin issuer and explain the supervised activities involved. They do not establish a public service-opening timetable, and this report does not treat approval as a guarantee of a digital asset's safety.
Related coverage: the OCC's stablecoin framework and waiver process, and FINRA's timetable for outside crypto-activity rules. This report summarises regulatory documents and is not investment or legal advice.
