Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure company owned by Stripe, said on Tuesday that it received conditional approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to form a national trust bank.
The statute would allow Bridge National Trust Bank to issue stablecoins, custody digital assets, and manage reserves under direct federal supervision. It’s the latest 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 businesses, fintechs, crypto companies and financial institutions build with digital dollars within a clear federal framework,” the company said in the press release.
Bridge says its systems already meet the compliance standards outlined in the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, the law passed last year that aims to regulate stablecoin issuers. Federal banking regulators, including the OCC, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, have not yet instituted the specific regulations required by the GENIUS Act, but are now moving forward with that process.
Bridge is part of a growing group of companies looking to create stablecoin products within a federal framework. 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 banking charter in October. Bridge applied for his charter in October and OCC records show he approved it last week.
The company currently powers the issuance of stablecoins for products like Phantom’s CASH and MetaMask’s mUSD through Stripe’s Open Issuance platform.
The OCC has not announced a timeline for final approval.
