Ripple Gets a Bank and It’s Working for RLUSD, Not XRP
Ripple has won final federal approval for its national trust bank, which will manage the reserves behind its $2.5 billion RLUSD stablecoin and offer institutional crypto custody.
Key Takeaways
- Ripple National Trust Bank won final OCC approval
- It will manage RLUSD reserves as holders’ trustee
- A New York trust company still issues RLUSD
- Ripple joins BitGo and Circle with final charters
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted the approval on October 26, Ripple said, roughly ten months after conditionally approving the bank in December 2025.
From conditional approval to an opening date
Final approval completes the organizing stage, but Ripple National Trust Bank, or RNTB, is not yet open. Ripple describes its custody services as starting once the bank opens and says it will keep working with regulators as operations begin. It has not given a date.
Ripple was one of five crypto firms the OCC conditionally approved in December 2025. Circle and Ripple applied for new national trust banks, while BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos sought to convert existing state charters. BitGo and Circle reached final approval first, making Ripple’s the second newly built bank from the group to clear the process. Before that round, Anchorage Digital was the only crypto firm holding a national trust charter.
Who does what for RLUSD
| Entity | Supervisor | Role for RLUSD |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Custody & Trust Company | New York DFS | Issues the stablecoin |
| BNY | Federal bank regulators | Primary reserve custodian |
| Ripple National Trust Bank | OCC | Manages the segregated reserves and acts as collateral trustee for holders, once open |
Issuance stays in New York. Circle made the same choice: USDC issuance is moving to a New York limited-purpose trust company rather than Circle’s national trust bank. Ripple’s announcement does not explain its reasoning.
The trustee role is the one holders should watch. A collateral trustee holds rights over assets on behalf of the people they secure, in this case RLUSD holders, and RNTB will owe those duties as an OCC-supervised fiduciary. Ripple has not yet published the trust terms, including how holders would claim the reserves if the issuer ran into trouble.
The charter has limits. A national trust bank is restricted to fiduciary work such as custody and trustee services, so RNTB will not take deposits or make loans like a commercial bank.
Big news heading into @RippleSwell: the @USOCC has granted final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank.
This gives Ripple a federally supervised platform to support $RLUSD and provide digital asset custody to enterprises.
We’ve always said crypto and banks work better together — this is what that looks like. Real innovation, real accountability, federal oversight.
The revolution isn’t happening outside the system. It’s happening from within it.
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) October 26, 2026
What RLUSD gets out of it
RLUSD reached a $2.5 billion market value less than two years after its December 2024 launch. Ripple uses it across its payments network and as collateral in Ripple Prime, its prime brokerage, and publishes monthly third-party attestations of supply and reserves. It says those reserves are held in U.S. dollar deposits, Treasuries and cash equivalents.
For an institution vetting the token, the change is a second supervisor. New York regulators oversee the issuer, and the OCC will oversee the entity that manages the reserves and holds them in trust for holders. Ripple ties that setup to the federal stablecoin framework the U.S. is still implementing under the GENIUS Act. It is a different product from JPMorgan’s JPM Coin, a tokenized bank deposit open only to approved clients.
Where XRP fits
Nothing in RNTB’s approved activities names XRP, the XRP Ledger or XRP-based settlement. The plan covers RLUSD reserves, the trustee role and fiduciary custody.
Custody is the one point of contact. Once the bank opens, institutional clients that hold XRP could keep it there, but that is safekeeping rather than new demand. A direct link would need a product that uses XRP or XRPL liquidity, such as the ledger-level work in CSD BR’s Brazilian fund-recordkeeping pilot.
Three things will show what the charter is worth in practice: an opening date for RNTB, its first custody clients, and whether RLUSD’s monthly attestations begin naming the bank in the reserve chain.
This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial or investment advice. Regulatory approvals, product availability and institutional adoption may change over time.
Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work at Coindoo has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem. To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem. His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.
