OCC Approves Trust Charters for Stablecoin Firms: What It Means for Regulated Digital Payments

Last week, we held a well-attended tech talk on Multi-Rail Money Movement and the implications of stablecoins. Then, on Friday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced it has granted conditional approval for five digital-asset firms—including major stablecoin platforms and institutional custody providers—to establish national trust banks. The interest in stablecoins is reaching a fever pitch, so we wanted to recap the OCC announcement and what it means.

This development arrives in the wake of the GENIUS Act, which introduced clearer guardrails for stablecoin reserves, disclosures, and operational standards. While these charters do not permit deposit-taking or provide FDIC insurance, they represent major federal action in defining a supervised pathway for stablecoin issuance, custody, and blockchain-based payments.

A More Defined Regulatory Home for Stablecoins

Stablecoins have become a foundational component of modern financial infrastructure, enabling programmable, 24/7 settlement across borders and platforms. Yet enterprise adoption has lagged due to inconsistent oversight and uncertainty about what qualifies as a “regulated” stablecoin environment.

The GENIUS Act established guardrails around reserve composition, regular reporting and transparency, operational risk and cyber resilience, and governance and segregation of customers' assets.

The OCC’s conditional trust charters begin to add more structure by requiring GENIUS-aligned reserve, audit, and operational controls as conditions of approval; establishing examination authority over stablecoin-related activities; defining permissible activities for national trust banks offering tokenized payment services; and creating a template that other firms (and eventually banks) can follow.

This marks a major step toward a federal supervisory playbook for stablecoin operations.

Implications for Payment Infrastructure

The OCC’s decision has far-reaching implications beyond the firms involved. It underscores that the U.S. financial system is preparing for a multi-rail model of money movement, where enterprises can combine traditional fiat rails with emerging blockchain-based settlement mechanisms.

When issued and operated within consistent regulatory expectations, stablecoins can materially expand payment capabilities:

• Faster cross-border settlement
• Programmable, event-driven payments
• Interoperability across platforms, services, and borders

The GENIUS Act created the policy direction; these trust charters begin to translate that direction into operational reality.

Practical Implications for Enterprises and Financial Institutions

Many enterprises have been exploring blockchain-based settlements for years but have stalled due to unclear regulatory frameworks. This announcement meaningfully changes the calculus.

Key points for companies exploring stablecoin use:

• Companies can now assess stablecoin issuers and custodians operating under a federal charter, providing greater confidence in vendor selection.
• Organizations that paused pilots—for programmatic payments, cross-border transactions, or other use cases—due to compliance uncertainty can consider restarting with increased federal regulatory clarity.
• Treasury teams can more credibly evaluate stablecoin rails as part of a multi-rail strategy, supported by clearer regulatory justification and risk frameworks.
• Firms can engage with providers whose risk, audit, and governance obligations now more closely mirror bank-level supervision, reducing operational and compliance concerns.
• The new framework materially reduces friction for enterprises and institutions evaluating regulated providers.

Looking Ahead

Because these approvals are conditional, each firm must still meet requirements around capital, governance, and risk management. Even so, the signal is clear: digital-asset infrastructure is moving into a supervised model aligned with the expectations set by the GENIUS Act.

These new national trust arrangements also reopen a long-simmering issue about what types of government-chartered entities should be entitled to Federal Reserve master accounts. Courts have recently decided that regional Federal Reserve Banks may have discretion over who they approve for master account access. These master accounts allow approved entities to access key U.S. payment systems, including ACH, Fedwire, and FedNow, and are key components for working with private networks such as Visa. Full master accounts can also earn interest and access daylight overdraft privileges. Federal Reserve Board officials, such as Governor Waller, have recently proposed master accounts with fewer privileges—so-called “skinny” or “narrow” accounts for payment purposes. The industry will be watching to see if any of these newly approved firms can also earn approval for a master account—skinny or otherwise—from their regional reserve banks.

For the broader industry, this represents an important step toward a future where regulated stablecoin settlement operates alongside existing payment systems—not outside them. As the ecosystem shifts toward multi-rail money movement, regulatory clarity and operational oversight will be key drivers of trust, adoption, and long-term reliability.