Stripe's stablecoin firm Bridge wins initial approval of national bank trust charter

Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure firm owned by Stripe, 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.

The charter would let Bridge National Trust Bank issue stablecoins, custody digital assets and manage reserves under direct federal oversight. 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 enterprises, fintechs, crypto businesses and financial institutions build with digital dollars inside 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 U.S. Stablecoins ($GENIUS) Act, the law passed last year that's aimed at regulating stablecoin issuers. Federal banking regulators, including the OCC, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., haven't yet instituted the specific regulations mandated by the $GENIUS Act, but they're moving through that process now.

Bridge is part of a growing group of firms seeking to build stablecoin products inside a federal framework. In December, Circle, Ripple, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets and BitGo all received similar conditional approvals from the OCC, and Erebor Bank was granted a conditional national bank charter in October. Bridge applied for its charter in October, and the OCC's records show it signed off last week.

The company currently powers stablecoin issuance for products like Phantom’s CASH and MetaMask’s mUSD via Stripe’s Open Issuance platform.

The OCC has not announced a timeline for final approval.