President Donald Trump-backed World Liberty Financial secured preliminary approval to become a national trust bank on Friday.
In a letter, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted World Liberty Trust Company, National Association conditional approval, bringing it one step closer to a final approval for a bank charter.
"The OCC hereby grants preliminary conditional approval of your charter application upon determining that your proposal meets certain regulatory and policy requirements," the regulator said in its letter.
Earlier this year, WLF created a new trust company in order to secure a banking license from the OCC that it said would allow it to offer stablecoin issuance and redemption, on-ramp and off-ramp services, and custody and conversion.
WLF issues a stablecoin called USD1, which has a market capitalization of $4 billion and ranks as the fourth-largest stablecoin after Tether and USDC.
