Circle has received approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a national trust bank.
The approval places the new entity under direct federal oversight by the OCC, the primary regulator for national banks and national trust banks in the US.
The charter is intended to strengthen the infrastructure supporting USDC, Circle's US dollar-backed stablecoin, by bringing custody services under a federally regulated banking framework. Reserve management is described as a future capability rather than an immediate function of the bank. As a national trust bank, Circle National Trust will operate under fiduciary standards that have historically applied to the custody of client assets by such institutions, extending that framework to digital assets.
Once operational, Circle National Trust will provide fiduciary digital asset custody services for Circle and its affiliates. According to the business plan submitted to and approved by the OCC, the bank may, depending on demand, extend its custody services to a limited number of institutional customers, with a focus on banks and other financial institutions such as regulated derivatives organisations. In addition, the charter also allows for the possible future management of the USDC reserve under OCC oversight, which would extend federal regulatory scrutiny to that function.
Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Circle, described the approval as a step toward integrating blockchain-based digital assets into the core of the US financial system, noting that federal oversight of the trust bank is intended to support governance and scale for the company's infrastructure as institutional adoption of public blockchains continues.
Regulatory track record
Circle submitted its application to the OCC on 30 June 2025 and received conditional approval in December 2025, ahead of this month's final authorisation. The move builds on a longer history of regulatory engagement. In 2015, Circle became the first company to receive a BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services, a licence it continues to hold. Later in 2024, it became the first global stablecoin issuer to comply with the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets framework. The company also holds licences in the UK, Singapore, and Bermuda, and has met Canadian value-referenced crypto asset requirements. In 2025, Circle obtained a licence from the Abu Dhabi Global Market's Financial Services Regulatory Authority.
The OCC approval adds a US federal charter to this existing set of regional authorisations, positioning USDC-related custody activity within a nationally regulated banking structure as stablecoin oversight develops across multiple jurisdictions.
