X-user WrathofKahneman, who closely follows Ripple’s activities and is well-known in the cryptocurrency community, shared the first public part of an important application made by the company to the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
According to the disclosures, Ripple has applied for a license to establish a limited-purpose national trust bank.
According to the application, this new structure aims to hold Ripple’s RLUSD (Ripple USD) reserves and establish a regulated infrastructure for tokenized financial products. It also raises the possibility of direct access to the Fed in the future.
According to WrathofKahneman, this initiative isn’t targeting individual users. According to the Banking Comprehensive Revision Act (CRA), the regulation doesn’t apply to banks that don’t provide loans or take deposits and only offer trust-based services. This suggests Ripple’s new structure will focus solely on business (B2B) services.
Ripple’s Application Doesn’t Provide Any XRP Details
Another notable detail is that the application doesn’t directly mention XRP. Analysts note that Ripple is attempting to clearly separate XRP from its banking license, aiming to avoid regulatory confusion. However, there’s no indication that future XRP integrations are completely ruled out.
The application details that Ripple Labs would own the bank, issue special shares to its executives, and that much of the application was kept confidential. This secrecy was interpreted as a sign of a potential initial public offering (IPO) plan.
As a result, Ripple is aiming for a national bank license to create a regulated subsidiary to manage its tokenization infrastructure.
*This is not investment advice.