Bastion Receives Conditional OCC Approval for a National Trust Bank Charter

• The charter allows Bastion to bring its stablecoin issuance, custody and conversion products under one federally regulated entity
• Amidst regulatory momentum, Bastion appoints four new advisors, including former senior leadership from American Express, Morgan Stanley, EY and Optum

NEW YORK, Sept. 18, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bastion, the stablecoin infrastructure provider for global enterprises and financial institutions, today announced that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has granted the business preliminary conditional approval for a national trust bank charter. The charter adds federal supervision from the OCC to the state licenses Bastion already holds, fortifying the company’s ability to serve enterprise and financial institution clients.

Bastion – licensed under the new national trust bank charter as Bastion Platforms National Trust Company – will offer stablecoin custody & wallets, payment infrastructure, and white-label issuance from a single federally regulated entity. Enterprises and financial institutions now have access to the full Bastion product stack through one federally regulated counterparty that meets the standards their own regulators, auditors and risk committees expect.

Bastion has been building toward federal supervision since acquiring its New York trust charter in February 2025. The approval places Bastion among a small group of elite firms to secure conditional approval for a national trust bank charter.

"Stablecoins have moved from emerging technology into core financial infrastructure, and that requires a different standard of trust, governance and regulatory rigor," said Nassim Eddequiouaq, CEO of Bastion. "Enterprises and financial institutions can now access stablecoins through a federally regulated counterparty, with the controls and oversight they already expect from their banks. We’ve built Bastion for this moment from day one. Institutional adoption is accelerating, but we’re still in the early innings. Demand is growing faster than the number of providers that can meet enterprise-grade regulatory and operational standards, and Bastion is among the few meeting those standards."

Under the charter, Bastion will provide fiduciary custody of USDC and other GENIUS Act-compliant digital assets, and white-label stablecoin wallet and issuance services for enterprise clients — including minting, redemption and conversion between stablecoins and fiat. Bastion will continue to provide technology and operational infrastructure to other regulated issuers, who remain the issuer of record.

Beyond the regulatory milestone, Bastion remains laser focused on building a team with the experience to understand and meet the needs of institutional clients. Bastion strengthened its leadership bench with four new appointments:

• Colleen Taylor joins as a member of the Board of Directors. Colleen most recently served as President, U.S. Merchant Services at American Express, leading the organization responsible for relationships with millions of U.S. merchants. She previously held senior roles at Wells Fargo, Mastercard and Capital One across merchant services, payments and treasury management.
• Michael Patterson joins as a member of the Board of Directors. Michael served as Chief Compliance Officer at institutional crypto lender and broker Genesis. He spent over a decade leading EY's Compliance Risk Management business within Financial Services, and earlier ran risk and control for Merrill Lynch's institutional business.
• Stuart Breslow joins as an Advisor. Stuart was Chief Compliance Officer at Morgan Stanley for more than ten years, and went on to senior leadership positions at McKinsey and Google advising financial services clients on compliance and regulatory technology.
• Gabriella Fitzgerald joins as an Advisor. Gabriella most recently served CEO, Healthcare Payments at Optum Financial. She previously served as President, North America for Western Union, following more than two decades in senior positions at American Express.

The appointments come as Bastion — already partnered with Sony Bank and backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures, among others — builds the infrastructure large enterprises and financial institutions use to run stablecoin programs at scale.

"These leaders spent decades of their careers setting the payments, risk, compliance and governance standards inside the institutions our clients come from," said Caroline Friedman, President and COO of Bastion. "That is the experience we want in the room as we continue to build compliance into the product rather than around it."

About Bastion
Bastion builds the full technology, operations and compliance stack behind enterprise stablecoin programs. Global companies and financial institutions use Bastion to build their own stablecoin networks: custody, movement, on/off-ramps and issuance, secured at scale. Sony Bank's global stablecoin initiative runs on Bastion. Bastion operates under its own licenses or as a technology provider under its clients', and issues no stablecoin of its own, so clients maintain control of their brand, their users and their economics. Visit Bastion.com to learn more.

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