Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure company operating under payment giant Stripe, has received provisional approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a clearing bank that will operate at the national level. With this development, the way has been opened for digital asset services to be offered under direct federal control.
Bridge’s Journey to the Federal Bank
Bridge, which was acquired by Stripe at the end of 2024, stands out as a company making a splash in the field of financial technology with its stablecoin-based payment solutions. With this acquisition, Stripe aimed to directly integrate stablecoin transactions into its global financial infrastructure. Thanks to the preliminary approval now received, Bridge will be able to provide digital asset custody, stablecoin reserve management and stablecoin issuance services across America. Additionally, the need to obtain separate licenses in different states will be eliminated.
Regulation and Requirements from OCC
This preliminary approval from the OCC also imposes various obligations so that Bridge can act with direct federal authority. Among the expectations from the company are establishing a strong anti-money laundering policy and providing adequate capital guarantee. This approval will be finalized after the company fulfills these conditions.
Bridge states that it has aligned its compliance framework with the GENIUS Act, which came into force last year and enables clearer regulation of crypto assets in the USA. Thanks to this law, classical financial institutions and innovative digital companies can adhere to federal standards when operating with tokenized assets.
Wave of Federalization in Stablecoin Companies
Recently, many digital asset companies have started knocking on the doors of US regulators to obtain national clearing bank status. By the end of 2025, Circle, BitGo, Ripple, Paxos, and Fidelity Digital Assets were among the companies that similarly received pre-approval from the OCC. This trend is being interpreted as the federal regulator’s strategy to increasingly incorporate stablecoin infrastructure into the traditional banking framework.
With this new status, Bridge will be able to offer digital dollar transactions, especially for corporate customers, under similar auditing standards as the banking sector. The company aims for a structure that can provide a combination of storage, issuance, reserve management and operations within the scope of stablecoin services.
In the statement made by Bridge, it is stated that stablecoin products and services will be offered under federal supervision, and in this context, storage, issuance, reserve management and operational processes will be directly supervised.
Industry sources point out that such national clearing bank steps make it easier for the stablecoin infrastructure to achieve a more transparent and accessible structure. Finally, practices such as ING Deutschland in Germany offering crypto-based investment products to individual investors show that the boundaries between traditional banking and digital finance are becoming increasingly permeable.
