Stripe's Bridge Wins OCC Nod to Build a Federal Stablecoin Trust Bank

Stripe-owned Bridge just cleared its first federal hurdle. On Feb. 12, 2026, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency handed the company preliminary conditional approval to organize Bridge National Trust Bank in New York — a chartered entity that would issue dollar stablecoins, custody digital assets and steward stablecoin reserves under federal watch.

Read the fine print, though: this is a green light to build, not to bank. Bridge still has to satisfy preopening requirements before final authorization lands, so no doors are open yet. The proposed bank would also carry no FDIC insurance.

The charter would sit on top of Bridge's existing business. Its subsidiary Bridge Building Inc. is a state-licensed money transmitter that issues USDB and white-label stablecoins, runs custody, and offers orchestration — the plumbing that lets customers buy, sell or convert crypto inside custodial accounts. Under the plan, the new trust bank becomes the primary issuer of Bridge's white-label coins, holds digital assets under fiduciary duties, manages reserves for affiliated and unaffiliated issuers, and acts as trustee for their stablecoin holders.

The OCC expects the custody arm to mostly serve retail customers outside New York, with room for affiliates and some institutional clients. The price of admission is steep: at least $45 million in tier 1 capital, plus a separate pool of eligible liquid assets covering 180 days of operating expenses across the bank's first three years. Bridge must also stand up AML and sanctions compliance policies, win the OCC's non-objection on its final tech architecture, and request a preopening exam at least 60 days before it plans to open.

One thing the charter does not buy is permission to issue payment stablecoins under the GENIUS Act. A federal qualified issuer has to be both OCC-chartered and cleared through the law's separate issuer-application process. Per OCC guidance from Oct. 21, issuers generally need permitted-issuer approval to issue payment stablecoins in the U.S. starting Jan. 18, 2027 — and merely filing an application doesn't earn a waiver, though issuers with substantially complete applications pending by that date can ask for up to 12 months of relief.

Bridge can't queue up for that yet anyway. The OCC's GENIUS Act page says the agency isn't accepting issuer applications or waiver requests while it waits on the Office of Management and Budget to approve the forms.