Circle Wins Final OCC Approval for First National Digital Currency Bank, a National Trust Bank That Can Hold Assets but Cannot Take Deposits or Make Loans

Circle Internet Group, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has won final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the US regulator of national banks, to set up a national trust bank. The details in this article come from The Block's report of the approval, published on July 10, 2026 and updated on October 19, 2026. The report is secondary reporting of the company's announcement, and the OCC's approval letter was not reviewed. Some headlines have called the new entity a crypto-focused national bank; the report's description is narrower, and this article follows it.

What was approved

The OCC granted Circle final approval to establish First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., which will operate as Circle National Trust. The company announced the approval on Friday, July 10, 2026. A national trust bank is a bank chartered by the OCC whose business is limited mainly to fiduciary activities, such as holding assets on behalf of clients. It sits under direct federal supervision by the OCC, in contrast with a company that relies on state-level licences. Circle's chief executive, Jeremy Allaire, said the federal oversight sets a new standard for transparency, governance and scale.

What the bank can and cannot do

According to the report, at launch the bank will provide fiduciary digital asset custody for Circle and its affiliates. Depending on demand, it may later offer custody to a limited number of institutional clients, mainly banks and other financial institutions. It cannot accept cash deposits or make loans, although it can hold customer assets. A trust bank therefore does not compete with a high-street bank for savings accounts or mortgages; its function is safekeeping.

The report draws a distinction that is easy to overlook. Managing the USDC reserve, the pool of assets that backs the stablecoin, was a key goal of Circle's original application, which was filed on June 30, 2025. Under the terms of the conditional approval, however, that is now a future capability and not part of the launch. USDC issuance itself will move to a New York limited-purpose trust company, and not to the national trust bank. A reader who assumes the new bank will immediately hold the reserves behind USDC would therefore be mistaken on the basis of this report.

The approval timeline

June 30, 2025: Circle applied to the OCC.

December 2025: Circle received conditional approval, alongside Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos.

July 10, 2026: final approval was announced, roughly 12 months after the application was filed, a span calculated here from the two dates.

Other firms in the queue

The report places the Circle decision in a wider wave of crypto-related charter applications. BitGo received full OCC approval in December 2025. Crypto.com and Coinbase have won conditional approvals. Bridge, which is owned by Stripe, received conditional approval in February 2026. Sony Bank's trust subsidiary, Connectia Trust, which plans to issue a dollar-backed stablecoin, has cleared the conditional stage. Anchorage Digital Bank was the only crypto firm holding a national trust charter before these approvals; it received its charter in 2021. The report lists many other applicants, including Ripple, Paxos, Coinbase, Crypto.com, World Liberty Financial, Laser Digital, Payoneer, Morgan Stanley, Zerohash, Charles Schwab, EDX, Payward and Catena Labs. Not all of these have received approvals, and the report does not give decisions for each one.

Criticism

Senator Elizabeth Warren has criticised the OCC for granting national trust charters to companies that, in her view, do not qualify under the National Bank Act. The report summarises her position and does not give the OCC's response. The disagreement concerns whether firms whose main business is digital assets fit the legal definition of a national trust bank, a question that could be tested in later challenges.

Company background

The report notes that Circle was the first company to receive a BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services, in 2015, and that it also holds licences in the United Kingdom, Singapore and Bermuda. It gives Circle's shares (ticker CRCL) as closing at roughly $63 on the Thursday before the announcement. The report does not say how the shares moved afterward, so this article does not repeat claims about the size of any share-price rise.

What changes for users

For holders of USDC, the report describes no change at launch: issuance moves to a New York trust company, and the new federally chartered bank begins with custody for Circle and its affiliates. The practical effect of the charter, therefore, is mostly about the supervision of Circle's own custody operations and the option of serving a small number of institutional clients later. Whether that becomes a larger business depends on demand and on future OCC decisions about permitted activities.

What to watch

Three points follow from the report. First, whether and when the OCC allows the bank to take on reserve management, since that was the original aim. Second, whether the bank begins serving outside institutions and how many. Third, whether the legal challenge Warren's criticism points to materialises, which would affect not only Circle but the other applicants in the queue.

Limits

This article relies on one secondary report and does not reproduce the OCC's approval. It does not assess Circle's financial position. It is general information, not investment advice.