OCC Grants Conditional Approval to Trump-Linked Stablecoin Issuer WLFI

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has granted conditional approval to World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a stablecoin issuer linked to President Donald Trump's family, for its application to establish a bank. WLFI issues the dollar-pegged stablecoin USD1 and plans to expand its use through this approval.

Recent trends at the OCC show that 22 new bank licenses were approved in about 20 months under the Trump administration, exceeding the cumulative total of the previous five years. Many of these approvals were for fintech firms and crypto-related companies. In fact, about 60 percent of new bank charter applications now include digital asset-related business plans.

OCC chief Jonathan Gould said that the number of applications increased eightfold compared to the four years under the Biden administration. He also noted that it is becoming common for applications to include payment stablecoins in their business plans, indicating a shift towards incorporating stablecoin infrastructure into mainstream banking.