Headline: Stripe’s Bridge wins conditional OCC nod to form national trust bank, paving way for federally overseen stablecoin issuance Stripe-owned Bridge said Tuesday it has received conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to form a national trust bank — a move that would let the firm issue stablecoins, custody digital assets and manage reserves under direct federal supervision. The approval is a key step in Stripe’s broader push into blockchain-based payments since it acquired Bridge for $1.1 billion in 2024. “This approval positions Bridge to help enterprises, fintechs, crypto businesses and financial institutions build with digital dollars inside a clear federal framework,” the company said in its press release. Bridge says its systems already meet the compliance standards set out in last year’s Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which directs how stablecoin issuers should be regulated. Federal banking agencies — including the OCC, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC — have not yet finalized the implementing rules required by the GENIUS Act, but are actively working through the process. The conditional charter puts Bridge among a growing cohort of firms pursuing federally supervised stablecoin operations. In December, Circle, Ripple, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets and BitGo received similar conditional approvals from the OCC, and Erebor Bank was granted a conditional national bank charter in October. Bridge filed its application in October, and OCC records indicate the agency signed off last week. Bridge already powers stablecoin issuance for products such as Phantom’s CASH and MetaMask’s mUSD via Stripe’s Open Issuance platform. The OCC has not provided a timeline for converting the conditional approval into a final charter. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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