Circle wins OCC approval for digital asset trust bank

Circle has received final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a national trust bank, Circle National Trust.

The approval allows Circle to open First National Digital Currency Bank, a federally regulated national trust bank focused on digital asset custody. Under the approved business plan, the bank will initially provide fiduciary custody services for Circle and its affiliates.

The move brings part of Circle's digital asset infrastructure under direct OCC oversight. The agency supervises national banks and national trust banks in the United States. The charter could also support reserve management for USDC at a later stage, though that is not part of the initial launch.

USDC is Circle's stablecoin and a central part of its business. The trust bank structure ties digital asset custody to the traditional role of national trust banks, which hold client assets under fiduciary rules.

Custody focus

At the outset, Circle National Trust is expected to focus on safeguarding digital assets for affiliated entities. The approved plan also allows the bank to offer custody services directly to a limited number of institutional customers, with banks and other financial institutions identified as the target market.

That would give Circle a way to serve regulated institutions through a federal banking framework rather than relying only on state-level or overseas permissions. It also marks another step by a crypto-linked company into the scope of U.S. banking regulation through a chartered entity.

Circle filed its charter application in mid-2025 and received conditional approval later that year. The final decision completes that process and clears the company to establish the trust bank under the approved structure.

The development comes as stablecoin issuers seek closer alignment with mainstream financial regulation, particularly in the United States, where policymakers and regulators have paid increasing attention to the role of dollar-backed digital tokens in payments and market infrastructure. A national trust bank charter does not make Circle National Trust a full-service commercial bank, but it does place the entity under a federal supervisory regime.

Regulatory path

Circle has built its expansion around obtaining licences in multiple jurisdictions. It says it was the first business to receive a BitLicence from the New York Department of Financial Services and later became the first global stablecoin issuer to comply with the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets framework.

It also holds licences in the UK, Singapore and Bermuda, has met Canadian value-referenced crypto asset requirements, and secured a licence from the Abu Dhabi Global Market's Financial Services Regulatory Authority. The new OCC approval adds a federal U.S. banking charter to that list.

Circle linked the trust bank approval to the development of USDC, which it described as the world's largest regulated stablecoin. Bringing custody into a national trust bank may help address institutional counterparties' concerns about supervision, asset safeguarding and operational controls.

Reserve management remains a significant issue for stablecoin issuers because those reserves underpin the value of tokens pegged to sovereign currencies. Circle plans reserve management for USDC as a future function of the trust bank, which would place that activity under federal oversight if implemented.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Circle, described the approval as a milestone for the company's position in the U.S. financial system.

"OCC approval to establish Circle National Trust marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system," said Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Circle.

"Federal oversight of our trust bank sets a new standard for transparency, governance and scale for Circle's infrastructure and unlocks a new phase of adoption, where leading financial institutions can build on public blockchains with clarity and confidence," Allaire said.