On Dec. 9, the Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money put out a press launch with a really direct message for US banks: you might be allowed to sit down in the midst of crypto trades.
Within the memorably titled Information Launch 2025-121, the OCC revealed the someway even worse-titled Interpretive Letter 1188 and confirmed that nationwide banks could run “riskless principal” crypto-asset transactions as a part of the enterprise of banking, performing as the customer to 1 buyer and vendor to a different, whereas maintaining no significant stock of tokens themselves.
A day earlier, Comptroller Jonathan Gould stood earlier than a room of business individuals and made a unique, however intently associated, level.
He mentioned he noticed no motive to deal with digital belongings as a separate species on the subject of custody and safekeeping, and he brushed apart a lobbying push from the Financial institution Coverage Institute, which has urged his company to dam a wave of crypto companies from acquiring nationwide belief charters.
BPI’s marketing campaign, specified by an October assertion titled “BPI Urges OCC to Protect the Integrity of Nationwide Belief Charters,” argues that candidates like massive exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and fintech platforms wish to use belief charters as a again door into bank-like actions with out carrying the complete load of deposit insurance coverage and holding-company supervision.
Taken collectively, the interpretive letter and Gould’s remarks define a transparent route for the business’s future. The OCC isn’t making an attempt to wall crypto off from the banking system, however making an attempt to work out which items of that exercise match inside acquainted classes like brokerage, custody, and fiduciary enterprise, and below what circumstances.
US banks now have express consolation that they will match crypto trades for purchasers on a riskless principal foundation, and crypto corporations can see that the door to a nationwide belief constitution is not closed simply because their belongings transfer on blockchains moderately than by means of legacy securities depositories.
Who truly runs this a part of the banking system
For anybody outdoors the US, the alphabet soup of financial institution regulators can really feel like an elaborate puzzle, so it’s price beginning with the fundamentals.
The Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money (OCC) is an unbiased bureau inside the US Treasury that charters, regulates, and supervises nationwide banks and federal financial savings associations, in addition to the federal branches and companies of overseas banks.
It earns its residing from assessments and costs on the banks it oversees moderately than from annual congressional budgets, which supplies it a level of insulation from short-term political fights over funding. Its mandate runs by means of security, honest entry to monetary companies, and compliance with banking legislation.
The Comptroller of the Foreign money sits on the prime of this construction. Gould, sworn on this summer season, serves each because the OCC’s chief government and as a member of our bodies such because the Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Company board and the Monetary Stability Oversight Council, which suggests his views attain into broader debates about monetary stability and market plumbing.
His core energy, although, may be very particular: he leads the company that grants nationwide financial institution charters.
A financial institution constitution on this context is basically a enterprise license that allows an establishment to function as a financial institution or a intently associated entity below federal legislation. On the federal degree, the OCC manages these licenses; on the state degree, separate regulators problem their very own variations.
The OCC’s Licensing Guide on charters particulars the method totally, from preliminary software to remaining approval. Organizers should exhibit that their proposed financial institution has ample capital, a reputable administration workforce, a marketing strategy able to withstanding stress, and threat controls protecting every part from primary credit score threat to operational and cyber dangers.
New digital-only banks are anticipated to satisfy the identical requirements, with added scrutiny on know-how and third-party suppliers.
Inside that world, a nationwide belief financial institution occupies a slender however vital area of interest. Federal legislation permits the OCC to constitution a nationwide financial institution whose actions are restricted to these of a belief firm and associated companies, usually centered on performing as trustee, executor, funding supervisor, or custodian of belongings.
These entities normally do not take deposits within the extraordinary retail sense and infrequently don’t carry FDIC insurance coverage. Due to that construction, many nationwide belief banks don’t meet the definition of a “financial institution” below the Financial institution Holding Firm Act, which suggests their mum or dad corporations can keep away from the complete weight of consolidated holding-company supervision.
That authorized design explains why belief charters have turn into the main target of a tug-of-war. For crypto companies that wish to maintain prospects’ tokens, handle stablecoin reserves, or sit on the heart of settlement flows with out turning into full industrial banks, a nationwide belief constitution gives three issues directly: a federal supervisor, nationwide attain, and a path that will keep outdoors holding-company guidelines.
For conventional banks and their commerce teams, that appears like an uneven taking part in subject, particularly if new entrants can deal with massive volumes of funds and reserves with a narrower licence.
BPI’s letters to the OCC spell out precisely this fear, warning that belief charters had been traditionally supposed for establishments “predominantly engaged in belief and fiduciary actions.” On the similar time, some digital-asset candidates search to run broader fee and reserve companies.
Gould’s public line has been that know-how should not be the dividing line. He factors again to a long time of digital custody and book-entry securities. He asks why holding cryptographic claims on a distributed ledger ought to be handled as alien to the banking enterprise.
That very same logic underlies Interpretive Letter 1188, which depends on earlier court docket circumstances and OCC opinions to argue that riskless principal crypto-asset trades are each the useful equal of acknowledged brokerage exercise and a logical extension of current crypto custody companies.
What this implies for crypto custody and buying and selling
The brand new letter does one very instant factor for US establishments: it tells nationwide banks that they might stand in the midst of buyer crypto trades, as long as they construction these trades as matched principal transactions and handle the dangers with the identical care they’d apply to securities.
The financial institution can purchase a digital asset from one buyer and instantly promote it to a different, reserving two offsetting positions that depart it with no internet publicity past settlement and operational threat.
For tokens that rely as securities, this sits on well-worn floor below part 24 of the Nationwide Financial institution Act. For different crypto-assets, the letter walks by means of a four-factor take a look at and concludes that the exercise nonetheless matches inside the “enterprise of banking.”
For giant banks which have saved crypto at arm’s size, that represents a sensible opening. It means they will construct customer-facing crypto brokerage and routing companies that preserve steadiness sheet threat to a minimal, moderately than dabbling by means of loosely related associates or leaving the sector totally to exchanges.
It additionally sits atop earlier OCC letters that already described how banks could maintain stablecoin reserves and supply primary custody companies for crypto.
On the constitution aspect, Gould’s refusal to provide BPI the blanket reply it needed could matter much more for the market’s form over the following few years. The OCC’s constitution guide reminds candidates that any limited-purpose belief financial institution should nonetheless fulfill the identical core requirements of capital, administration, threat management, and neighborhood wants as a full nationwide financial institution.
If the company begins approving digital-asset companies that meet these exams, the core of US crypto custody and settlement might migrate into nationwide belief banks that put on OCC supervision on their masthead.
For exchanges, that will create a route to supply institutional purchasers a vertically built-in stack: buying and selling, fiat settlement, and on-chain custody, all wrapped inside a federally supervised entity.
For stablecoin issuers, a nationwide belief financial institution might maintain reserves in an OCC-regulated steadiness sheet and run fee flows by means of Fed-connected correspondent networks, even when the issuer itself stays outdoors the whole financial institution framework.
For prime brokers and asset managers, the phrase “OCC-supervised nationwide belief financial institution” on a due diligence guidelines seems to be very totally different from “state-chartered belief firm” or “non-US custodian,” particularly when US securities guidelines push them towards “certified custodians” for digital belongings in the identical method they do for shares and bonds.
The flip aspect is that belief charters is not going to be a straightforward win
BPI and different commenters have been busy feeding detailed objections into the OCC’s docket for particular candidates, arguing that some crypto platforms have skinny consumer-protection data, conflicts of their enterprise fashions, or opaque possession buildings that do not sit nicely with bank-level oversight.
The OCC has broad discretion below its constitution guidelines to weigh administration high quality, monetary power, and neighborhood advantages, and it may possibly connect bespoke capital or liquidity circumstances to any belief financial institution approval. Which means the actual filter for crypto companies will sit in examination groups and supervisory agreements, not simply in headline speeches.
Globally, the route set in Washington tends to echo outward. Giant banks that function throughout continents typically look to US guidelines when deciding the place and tips on how to construct new strains of enterprise, and overseas regulators watch the OCC intently as a result of its selections form the behaviour of among the world’s largest steadiness sheets.
If US nationwide banks begin providing riskless principal routing for Bitcoin and Ethereum below clear OCC steering, that can affect how international purchasers anticipate these companies to look in London, Frankfurt, or Singapore.
If a handful of crypto companies safe nationwide belief charters and run massive custody and stablecoin operations below federal supervision, that can current a really totally different mannequin from the offshore exchange-and-local-payment-partner strategy that has outlined a lot of the previous decade.
The message for the crypto business right here is not that the US banking system has thrown the doorways extensive open, as a result of it hasn’t.
It is as a substitute that the important thing regulator for nationwide banks has begun to pin components of the crypto enterprise to concrete regulatory hooks: brokerage-like buying and selling as riskless principal, custody as a contemporary type of safekeeping, belief charters as a house for fiduciary and reserve exercise.
In a market the place regulatory uncertainty is the principle enterprise threat, that type of gradual, line-by-line clarification will be simply as essential as any splashy new legislation.
Crypto companies that wish to plug into US institutional cash now have a clearer image of the homework they should do. Banks that wish to transfer past white-label merchandise can see the place their very own supervisors are keen to attract the strains.
How shortly either side stroll by means of that opening will resolve whether or not OCC Letter 1188 and Gould’s speech mark the beginning of a brand new period of bank-run crypto plumbing or simply one other transient entry within the lengthy historical past of regulators testing the place digital belongings match inside current guidelines.
