World Liberty Gets Conditional OCC Approval for National Trust Bank

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency sent a preliminary conditional approval letter to World Liberty Trust Company National Association, a WLF unit, The Block reported on August 14. In the letter, the OCC said it granted preliminary conditional approval for the charter application after determining the proposal met certain regulatory and policy requirements.

WLF set up a separate trust entity earlier this year to obtain an OCC bank charter. If it secures final approval, the company would be able to offer stablecoin issuance and redemption, fiat conversion services, and custody and conversion operations. WLF currently issues USD1, a stablecoin with a market capitalization of $4 billion. It is the fourth-largest stablecoin after Tether's USDT and USD Coin's USDC.

Chief Executive Officer Jack Witkoff wrote in a post on X that the company aims to build the world's most trusted and widely used digital dollar while reinforcing the U.S. dollar's standing in the global economy. Witkoff is the son of Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy.

The conditional approval is not a final charter. Other crypto firms, including Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo, Ripple and Circle, have also received conditional approvals from the OCC over the past year.

Still, WLF's close ties to the Trump administration have drawn concern from Democratic lawmakers. Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Comptroller Gould in January calling for the review to be halted until Trump divests his stake in WLF and resolves the conflict of interest. If the charter is approved, she wrote, the agency would be in a position to write rules affecting the profitability of a company tied to the president while also directly supervising and enforcing laws against that company and its competitors.