Ramp Seeks US Trust Bank Charter for Crypto Custody
Ramp has applied to the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter. If approved, Ramp National Trust Bank could provide digital-asset custody and fiduciary investment management under federal supervision, but could not accept deposits or make commercial loans. The application remains under review, with no approval timeline announced.
Ramp says its existing checking and investment accounts hold more than $5 billion in customer balances, managed through separate financial partners. Those balances are not digital assets held in custody, and Ramp has not identified which assets it may support or when a service could launch. Its current banking and investment arrangements are unchanged. The company is valued at $60 billion and reports a $2 billion annualised revenue run rate, serving more than 85,000 teams.
The filing joins applications by Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Rain, Payward and Zerohash. It comes as the Independent Community Bankers of America challenges the OCC’s authority to charter national trust banks. For crypto traders, the application signals potential growth in federally supervised institutional custody, but it is an early regulatory step and does not yet establish new custody services or a direct price catalyst for any named cryptocurrency.
Neutral
The application does not name any cryptocurrency that Ramp plans to custody, and it has not been approved. As a result, there is no clear, immediate price catalyst for a specific token. In the short term, traders may view the filing as a modest sign of institutional interest in regulated digital-asset custody, but uncertainty over approval, the OCC’s authority and the service’s eventual scope limits any likely market reaction. Longer term, approval could support institutional access and confidence in custody infrastructure, potentially benefiting the wider crypto sector. However, that would be an indirect effect, dependent on regulatory outcomes and actual service adoption, rather than a direct signal for the price of a particular cryptocurrency.