World Liberty Financial Wins Preliminary Approval for US Trust Bank
World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency venture backed by President Donald Trump and members of his family, has received preliminary conditional approval from a U.S. banking regulator to establish a national trust bank focused on its USD1 stablecoin operations.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved the application for World Liberty Trust Company, National Association, on August 14. The proposed institution would be based in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, and operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of WLTC Holdings LLC.
The approval is an important step, but World Liberty does not yet have final permission to begin operating the bank. The OCC said the company must satisfy a series of pre-opening conditions before receiving final authorisation.
If those requirements are completed, World Liberty Trust would be able to issue and redeem the company’s USD1 stablecoin directly, maintain the reserves backing it and provide digital-asset custody services to institutional clients. Those functions are currently handled partly through BitGo.
The proposed institution would be a national trust bank, not a conventional retail bank. It generally would not take ordinary consumer deposits or offer traditional lending services. Instead, its business would centre on stablecoins, custody and related asset services.
World Liberty welcomed the decision, describing the preliminary approval as a milestone in a broader effort to bring USD1 issuance, custody and reserve management under direct federal supervision. Company president Zach Witkoff also acknowledged that additional regulatory steps must be completed before the bank can open.
USD1 has grown rapidly since its introduction in 2025. Reuters reports that the dollar-backed token currently has a market capitalisation of about $4 billion, making it the fourth-largest stablecoin.
The approval is also attracting political scrutiny because of World Liberty Financial’s ties to the Trump family.
Democratic lawmakers have argued that granting a federal banking charter to a company linked financially to a sitting president raises potential conflicts of interest. The OCC said the application was reviewed by career staff and that officials acted consistently with their legal and ethical responsibilities.
The regulator also examined concerns about foreign investors in World Liberty Financial. According to the OCC, several investors entered agreements stating that they would remain passive and would not attempt to influence the proposed bank’s operations.
World Liberty’s approval comes as U.S. regulators consider an increasing number of banking applications from cryptocurrency companies. Ripple, Coinbase, Morgan Stanley, Wise and other financial or digital-asset businesses have also pursued national trust-bank structures as the line between traditional banking and crypto infrastructure continues to narrow.
For World Liberty, the decision could eventually bring one of its most important cryptocurrency products directly inside the federally supervised U.S. banking system — provided the company clears the OCC’s remaining requirements.
