| What to Know: - OCC grants Bridge conditional approval to organize a national trust bank, not operate. - Planned scope: digital asset custody, stablecoin issuance, and reserve management under federal oversight. - Launch depends on meeting OCC conditions, completing controls, staffing, testing, and approvals. |
Stripe-owned Bridge has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to organize a federally chartered national trust bank, as reported by MarketScreener. This is authorization to organize, not to commence operations, so launch remains contingent on meeting post-approval milestones and receiving further permissions.
The contemplated scope for Bridge under a national trust bank charter includes digital asset custody, issuing stablecoins, and managing stablecoin reserves under federal oversight, according to CoinDesk. In practice, those activities will be bounded by conditions the OCC sets in the approval and subsequent supervision, and the firm would still need to complete core policies, staffing, controls, and testing before it can open.
Bridge applied for the charter in October 2025 and received conditional approval dated February 12, 2026, as reported by Cointelegraph. The platform was acquired by Stripe last year as the payments company expanded into stablecoin infrastructure, per Decrypt.
Legal analysts point to OCC Interpretive Letter 1176 (2021) as expanding permissible national trust bank activities to include certain non‑fiduciary digital asset custody and related services, as reported by American Banker. That interpretive posture helps explain why stablecoin custody and reserve functions can fit within a modern trust framework. More recently, coverage frames conditional charters like Bridge’s within the GENIUS Act’s stablecoin regime, according to The Block.
A national trust bank is a specialized federal charter focused on fiduciary and custodial activities rather than full‑service deposit‑taking. The Independent Community Bankers of America argue that Bridge’s proposed model would issue stablecoins without FDIC insurance, characterizing this as regulatory arbitrage relative to traditional banks.
Civil‑society commenters have also questioned the OCC’s authority to extend trust charters to crypto and stablecoin firms, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. They warn this may blur the line between banks and nonbanks and raise consumer‑protection concerns. Industry trade groups caution that using the trust charter in novel ways could create broader financial‑stability risks, as noted by PYMNTS.
The OCC has simultaneously signaled that new federally supervised entrants can benefit consumers when evaluated against consistent standards. As Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould put it in a December 2025 release on multiple trust charters, “new entrants into the federal banking sector are good for consumers, the banking industry and the economy,” with applicants assessed under rigorous criteria (OCC).
From here, conditional approval to organize means Bridge still must satisfy pre‑opening conditions and complete supervisory checkpoints before any operational launch. If the OCC later authorizes it to commence business, activities such as stablecoin custody, issuance, and reserve management would proceed within the trust‑bank scope described above and under federal oversight.
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