TL;DR
- Ripple nears final authorization for its national trust bank after conditional OCC approval.
- RNTB will offer institutional custody, settlement, and support RLUSD stablecoin reserves.
- Ripple minted 98 million RLUSD across Ethereum and XRP Ledger since March.
Ripple is working through the final pre-opening requirements for its national trust bank after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted conditional approval in December 2025. Once the company clears the remaining authorization steps, Ripple National Trust Bank (RNTB) will operate inside the U.S. federal banking framework — a position no other crypto-native firm currently holds with full clearance.
The charter Ripple pursues carries a specific scope. RNTB can offer custody and cross-border settlement services, but the license excludes consumer deposits and retail lending. Ripple intends to use RNTB primarily to support institutional clients, and to anchor the reserve structure behind RLUSD, its U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin. The company will also operate under dual oversight: the OCC at the federal level and the New York Department of Financial Services on the stablecoin side.
RLUSD Treasury Operations Accelerate as the Charter Nears Completion
On-chain data already reflects preparation for broader distribution. Ripple’s treasury minted 10 million RLUSD on Ethereum and the XRP Ledger, then burned 5 million tokens hours later. Since March 2, total minting across multiple batches crossed 98 million tokens — a volume that points to growing readiness for institutional deployment, not routine maintenance.
The stablecoin’s expansion connects directly to the banking charter. Once RNTB receives full authorization, Ripple gains a federally compliant settlement layer for RLUSD flows across payment rails. That combination — regulated custody plus a dollar-pegged asset with active treasury operations — positions Ripple to compete for institutional mandates in cross-border payments.
💵💵💵💵💵💵💵 10,000,000 #RLUSD minted at RLUSD Treasury.https://t.co/va1Ol77pwF
— Ripple Stablecoin Tracker (@RL_Tracker) March 5, 2026
Meanwhile, the broader race for national trust charters accelerated sharply. Eighteen applications reached the OCC in 2025, and more arrived in early 2026 from crypto firms and global fintech operators seeking direct access to U.S. banking infrastructure.
The OCC already granted conditional clearance to Circle, Paxos, BitGo, and Fidelity Digital Assets under similar trust bank restrictions. Revolut, ZeroHash, and World Liberty Financial currently sit in the review pipeline. Anchorage Digital remains the only fully operational national trust bank with complete approval — a distinction every firm in the queue wants to match.
Political pressure is also reshaping the timeline
President Donald Trump placed the CLARITY Act at the center of his digital asset agenda and publicly urged Congress to move the bill forward, arguing delays hand competitive ground to other markets.
A 2025 executive order directed federal agencies to eliminate political considerations from banking access decisions, clearing a path for firms like Ripple to advance their regulatory applications without facing discretionary obstacles.
For Ripple, the convergence of charter progress, RLUSD treasury activity, and a more receptive regulatory posture in Washington narrows the gap between conditional approval and full operational status.
