Circle Wins Final OCC Approval for Bank Charter

Internet financial platform Circle Internet Group has received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust bank, the company said in a Friday (July 10) press release.

The bank, First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., will operate under the name Circle National Trust and will offer fiduciary digital asset custody services for Circle and its affiliates, according to the release.

In the future, the bank may also offer its digital asset custody service to institutional customers directly, focusing on banks, regulated derivatives organizations and other financial institutions, and manage the USDC Reserve for the USDC stablecoin, per the release.

“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,” Circle Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO Jeremy Allaire said in the release. “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.”

Circle applied for the national trust charter in June 2025, with Allaire saying that by doing so, the company was “taking proactive steps to further strengthen our USDC infrastructure.”

The OCC granted preliminary conditional approval of the charter application in December 2025.

PYMNTS reported in February that a growing number of FinTech companies now see bank charters as powerful tools that can shape how they build their businesses, manage compliance and compete in the market.

In May, PYMNTS reported that during Circle’s first-quarter earnings call, the stablecoin issuer and digital asset infrastructure provider framed itself not as a payments company, but as an economic operating system being built for the future.

Circle’s receipt of approval to establish the bank is the latest example of the company’s regulatory engagement, according to its Friday press release.

The company received a BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services in 2015, complied with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework in 2024 and secured a license from Abu Dhabi Global Market’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority in 2025. It also holds licenses in the United Kingdom, Singapore and Bermuda, and it has met Canadian Value-Referenced Crypto Asset requirements, per the release.