RLUSD now answers to two regulators

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has given final approval to Ripple National Trust Bank, Ripple's chief executive Brad Garlinghouse announced late on Monday. The company applied for the charter in July 2025, received conditional approval that December, and now has full sign-off to run a specialised bank under federal supervision.

The bank's job is specific. It will manage the reserves backing RLUSD, Ripple's dollar stablecoin, act as trustee for those reserves, and provide regulated custody for institutional clients using digital assets in payments, trading and treasury management. RLUSD itself will still be issued by Ripple's New York-regulated unit, Standard Custody & Trust Company, so the stablecoin now has both state and federal regulators overseeing parts of its structure.

RLUSD launched in December 2024 and has grown to a market value of about 2.5 billion dollars, placing it among the world's top 50 stablecoins. It is used in Ripple's payments business and as collateral on Ripple Prime, and is backed by dollar deposits, US government securities and other cash-like assets.

For years, we've said crypto and banks work better together. Final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank is what that looks like in practice.

The split is worth noticing for what it does to oversight. Issuance stays where it was, under a state regulator, while reserves and custody move under a national charter. The parts of a stablecoin a holder most needs to rely on — the assets behind it and who holds them — are therefore the parts that now sit with the federal supervisor of national banks.