OCC approved national trust bank charter for Trump family crypto firm World Liberty Financial

On August 14, 2026, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted conditional preliminary approval to World Liberty Trust Company's application for a national trust bank charter, according to a decision letter signed by Senior Deputy Comptroller Stephen A. Lybarger and published on the OCC's website. World Liberty Trust Company is a subsidiary of World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto venture co-founded by President Trump and his sons Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Barron Trump. The approval is preliminary: OCC said final authorization for the bank to open will not be granted until it meets all pre-opening requirements.

The charter would let World Liberty issue and custody its USD1 stablecoin directly, rather than through its current intermediary BitGo, and settle payments through its own federally chartered bank while pre-empting state regulation. Comptroller Jonathan Gould, whom Trump appointed to head OCC, has granted similar national trust charters to about a dozen other crypto firms, including Ripple and Circle, after loosening the agency's chartering criteria and cutting review times. World Liberty Financial is a private company in which Trump holds a substantial personal ownership interest -- Trump owns 70% of an LLC that in turn owns 38% of the holding company that owns WLFI, per his most recent public financial disclosure -- and from which he has reported tens of millions of dollars in personal income.

No spokesperson for the White House or OCC commented on the approval beyond the decision letter itself, and no independent ethics review or recusal process was reported. Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund called the approval unlawful, saying OCC "exceeded its statutory authority" and that WLFI's business relationships -- including with individuals previously convicted of money laundering and a United Arab Emirates sovereign-wealth-fund investor holding a 49% stake and two board seats -- should have disqualified the application. A World Liberty Financial spokesperson welcomed the approval as a "milestone" and said the firm would be subject to "robust and permanent regulatory oversight."

Updates

2026-08-17 — Senate Democrats introduced bill to block WLFI bank charter [5, 6]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other Senate Democrats announced plans to sponsor the "Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act," legislation to bar federal officials and their families from owning or controlling banks. "President Trump is now the first President in history to approve, operate, and supervise his own bank," Warren said. "This is the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen -- and Congress cannot allow it to stand." Ethics lawyer Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics counsel under President George W. Bush, separately warned of the precariousness of the president and his family being invested in a regulated industry he also has the power to regulate.