Ripple says the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted final approval to charter Ripple National Trust Bank, giving the company a federally supervised entity for RLUSD reserve management and institutional digital asset custody. The October 26 announcement follows conditional approval granted in December 2025.
The key distinction is which legal entity does what: Ripple National Trust Bank is intended to manage reserves and serve as collateral trustee, while the RLUSD stablecoin remains issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, the affiliate regulated by New York’s Department of Financial Services.
Ripple outlines the trust bank’s scope
According to Ripple’s original October 26 statement, the approved trust-bank business includes overseeing segregated RLUSD reserve assets and providing fiduciary digital asset custody services once the bank opens.
This is a limited national trust charter, not a license for a conventional retail bank that takes ordinary customer deposits and provides general consumer loans. The distinction matters because federal oversight of reserve management does not turn an RLUSD balance into an insured bank deposit.
Stablecoin issuance stays with Standard Custody
Ripple explicitly states that Standard Custody & Trust Company will continue issuing RLUSD. Ripple National Trust Bank adds a federally supervised reserve-management and custody layer rather than replacing the New York-regulated issuer.
The company reports an RLUSD market capitalization of approximately $2.5 billion and says BNY remains the primary reserve custodian. These are the company’s figures and arrangements as described in its announcement, not independently refreshed real-time reserve balances.
Final charter approval is not an opening date
Ripple says its proposed trust bank received a final regulatory approval, but it does not specify an operational opening date or demonstrate that all approved custody products are already available to customers. The company’s statement says those capabilities will be authorized upon opening.
The publicly accessible announcement reviewed for this story comes from Ripple; it should not be mistaken for the text of an independently reviewed final OCC charter document. Readers should distinguish the company’s claim of approval from separately published regulator paperwork and operational commencement.
Federal and state oversight in one structure
Ripple says the arrangement supports payments, custody and capital-markets services while working within state and federal regulatory frameworks. The operational implications will become clearer once it discloses launch timing, customer eligibility, fiduciary terms and how reserve transfers between involved entities will be governed.
BlockBriefing previously reported on Ripple Treasury’s separate always-on RLUSD announcement. Those treasury features and the new trust bank have different purposes and should not be presented as the same launch.
Primary source: Ripple’s October 26, 2026 announcement. Claims about approval and intended business scope are attributed to Ripple.