OCC Approval Moves World Liberty Stablecoin Bank Plan To Preopening Tests

A proposed World Liberty national trust bank won preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Aug. 14, The Block reported, moving the USD1 stablecoin plan into a preopening stage rather than granting authority to start business.

The OCC decision letter gives World Liberty Trust Company, National Association, a path toward a national trust bank charter in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida.

Under the OCC decision letter, final authorization under 12 USC 27(a) comes only after the bank clears required preopening items; OCC can still modify, suspend or rescind the conditional approval if interim developments warrant it.

Conditional Charter Covers USD1 And Custody Work

Control would sit under WLTC Holdings LLC, a Delaware entity that would own the proposed bank outright.

Its planned activities include dollar-backed stablecoin issuance and redemption, reserve maintenance in a nonfiduciary capacity, digital asset custody services as a fiduciary, and conversion services for custody customers.

The bank plans to issue USD1 to institutional clients nationwide, assuming that role from BitGo Bank & Trust, National Association, which the OCC letter identifies as the current exclusive issuer and custodian for USD1.

Conversion services would let custody customers submit approved stablecoins in exchange for USD1, but the service would be limited to custody customers and their custodied assets.

The OCC's legal analysis treats fiduciary digital-asset custody as an activity available to a national trust bank, while the planned stablecoin issuance and reserve maintenance would sit outside that fiduciary role.

The approval is framed as a limited-purpose trust-bank charter rather than a full-service commercial bank license.

World Liberty Financial issues USD1, a $4 billion stablecoin that ranks fourth after Tether and USDC.

That scale makes the charter process a federal-supervision question for a live dollar-token product, not only a new-company licensing filing.

Final Approval Still Depends On OCC Conditions

The preliminary approval does not remove the remaining bank-formation steps.

The OCC letter says the bank must apply for stock in a Federal Reserve Bank, satisfy preopening requirements, and receive final authorization before commencing business.

Those requirements keep the charter in a conditional lane.

Between preliminary approval and opening, the bank still has to organize itself, meet OCC commitments, and satisfy any supervisory requests that arise from its business plan, ownership structure or operating controls.

The decision also places World Liberty inside a wider OCC sequence for crypto trust-bank applicants.

Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo, Ripple and Circle have received conditional approvals over the past year, and Comptroller Jonathan Gould has backed a pathway for firms working with crypto and other novel technologies to become federally supervised banks.

Political Conflict Claims Remain Part Of The Record

World Liberty's ties to President Donald Trump remain a separate policy issue around the application.

In January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked Gould to halt OCC review until Trump divested from the company and eliminated financial conflicts involving himself, his family and the company.

Financial disclosures released in June linked World Liberty Financial to millions of dollars in Trump income.

Warren's letter argued that approval would place OCC rulemaking, supervision and enforcement in direct contact with a company linked to the president.

The conditional approval therefore creates two parallel tracks.

World Liberty has a regulator-approved route toward a national trust bank charter for USD1 issuance, custody and conversion services, while final operating authority still depends on OCC preopening checks that can change before the bank is allowed to commence business.