In brief
- Bridge, the stablecoin company acquired by Stripe, was awarded conditional approval of a national trust banking charter by the OCC.
- The firm’s conditional approval follows that of other crypto firms like Circle, Ripple, and Paxos.
- The traditional banking lobby has recently pushed back on the OCC’s conditional approvals of crypto firms.
Bridge, the stablecoin company that was acquired by payments giant Stripe, has been granted conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust banking charter, the firm announced on Tuesday.
Upon full approval, the firm would be able to custody digital assets, offer and issue stablecoins, and operate stablecoin reserves.
“Stablecoins are becoming core financial infrastructure,” the firm posted on X. “Institutions need regulatory clarity, operational resilience, and scalable systems to build with confidence. A national trust bank establishes that foundation.”
The firm’s conditional approval follows that of other major stablecoin and crypto firms like Circle, Ripple, and Paxos, which received conditional approval from the OCC in December.
Other major players, like publicly traded crypto exchange Coinbase and Trump-linked World Liberty Financial have also applied for their own national trust banking charters.
Bridge submitted its application in October, but the rush of crypto-related applications followed the OCC’s May decision to reaffirm that banks can hold and manage crypto assets for their customers, and the July signing of the GENIUS Act, which regulates the issuance and trading of stablecoins.
Now those applications are getting scrutiny from traditional banking’s largest lobbyers, which have urged regulators to slow its charter granting decisions.
“We urge OCC to ensure that robust, broadly applicable safety and soundness standards are well understood and upheld during this period of rapid innovation, to provide greater transparency throughout its charter application and decisioning processes,” a February 11 letter to the OCC from the American Bankers Association reads.
The banking lobby and crypto industry have recently also been at odds as it relates to stablecoin yields for the crypto market structure bill, or CLARITY Act. Crypto-friendly senator Cynthia Lummis recently “urged” traditional banks to embrace stablecoins, a sector of crypto that has grown to more than $308 billion in circulating supply, according to data from DefiLlama.
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