Overview
- Industry group Bank Policy Institute, representing 40 large lenders, is evaluating legal options after the OCC reinterpreted licensing rules to ease national trust bank approvals for crypto and fintech firms.
- The OCC’s recent actions include a December 2025 wave of conditional charters for Ripple, Circle, Paxos, BitGo and Fidelity, followed by February clearance for Crypto.com and new applications from Revolut and World Liberty Financial.
- Traditional banks argue the limited‑purpose trust framework allows a lighter regulatory regime that lacks comparable capital, deposit insurance and resolution requirements, blurring the definition of a bank and raising stability risks.
- State supervisors at the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and community banks at the ICBA have formally urged the OCC to slow approvals, citing threats to competition and consumer protection.
- The OCC, led by Comptroller Jonathan Gould, continues to advance approvals and rulemaking, while BPI points to its late‑2024 lawsuit against the Federal Reserve as precedent for challenging regulators in court.