Kraken Gains Direct Fed Access: How Far is Ripple from a Banking License?

Following Kraken's successful acquisition of direct access to the Federal Reserve System, industry attention has turned to Ripple—a company renowned for its cross-border payment technology, now striving to become a regulated, federally chartered bank. In July 2025, Ripple formally submitted its application for a national trust bank charter and a request for a Fed master account. In December of the same year, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) granted conditional approval, marking a crucial step in its financial compliance process.

Financial commentator Paul Barron noted on social platform X that current policy trends in Washington are subtly shifting due to the advancement of the CLARITY Act, signaling a new phase in the power dynamic between the financial system and crypto assets. This trend has sparked widespread market anticipation regarding Ripple's potential to replicate Kraken's path.

However, there are significant differences in their regulatory journeys. Kraken obtained a Wyoming banking license as early as 2020 and completed its routing number application in 2022, achieving Fed access after years of systematic preparation. In contrast, while Ripple has initiated the application process, it has not yet received final approval from the OCC. Its complete approval cycle could still take several years, making the path uncertain. While obtaining a Fed master account would greatly enhance Ripple's efficiency in USD cross-border settlements and strengthen its service capabilities for institutional clients, experts generally believe that this development will have a limited direct impact on the XRP token itself. As a liquidity bridge currency within the XRP Ledger network, XRP's value depends more on the expansion of ecosystem application scenarios than on the regulatory status enhancement of a single institution. In the future, whether Ripple can achieve full compliance and gain access to the Federal Reserve channel may reshape the landscape of global payment infrastructure, but its ultimate success still hinges on the deep synergy between regulatory pace and policy implementation.