Artem Voloskovets
The proposed New York-based national trust bank has OCC charter number 25364 and filing number 2025-Charter-342347.
What Still Needs to Happen
Conditional approval does not allow Ripple to begin banking operations. Final approval depends on satisfying OCC pre-opening requirements, including:
- BSA/AML and OFAC compliance controls
- Cybersecurity and customer information protection
- IT systems and operational infrastructure
- Governance, internal controls and risk management
- OCC pre-opening examination
Ripple must notify the OCC at least 60 days before the planned opening.
The conditional approval also sets deadlines: Ripple must raise the required initial capital within 12 months and generally open the bank within 18 months of the December 2025 approval, unless the OCC grants an extension.
This makes 2026 a realistic window for final approval, but the OCC has not confirmed a year-end decision date.
What the Charter Would Give Ripple
Ripple National Trust Bank would be a federally chartered trust bank supervised directly by the OCC.
It would not operate like a conventional retail bank. Its charter is designed around trust and related financial activities rather than standard consumer deposits and lending.
For Ripple, the main advantages are:
- direct federal banking supervision;
- a regulated entity for institutional financial services;
- stronger infrastructure for custody and settlement products;
- potentially less reliance on third-party banking partners.
There is a recent precedent. Circle received conditional OCC approval in December 2025 and final approval for Circle National Trust in July 2026, roughly seven months later.
Impact on XRP
The charter itself does not change XRP's legal status and does not automatically create demand for the token.
Its importance for XRP depends on implementation. If Ripple uses the federally regulated banking infrastructure to expand payment, settlement or liquidity products involving XRP, the charter could make those services easier for regulated financial institutions to adopt.
The key milestone is therefore final OCC approval, followed by what products and XRP-related services Ripple National Trust Bank is actually authorized to provide.
Artem Voloskovets
