TL;DR
The American Bankers Association is urging the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to slow approvals for national trust bank charters sought by crypto and stablecoin firms until the GENIUS Act framework is clearer. The ask is straightforward: don’t accelerate chartering while the rulebook is still under construction. In a comment letter on the OCC’s proposed chartering changes, the group framed speed as a governance risk, not a service level metric for the broader system.
The letter argues that applicants engaged in stablecoin and digital asset activity face unsettled oversight across multiple federal and state regulators. Bankers warn that applications should not advance when full obligations, including forthcoming GENIUS Act rulemakings, remain undefined. The association highlighted unresolved safety and soundness issues for uninsured, digital asset focused trusts, from operational resilience to resolution planning. It singled out customer asset segregation, conflicts of interest, and cybersecurity as areas where gaps can compound quickly.
Beyond prudential risk, the lobby flagged a perimeter problem: trust charters could be used to avoid SEC or CFTC registration when activities would otherwise trigger securities or derivatives regulation. Their thesis is that a federal wrapper should not become a shortcut around market rules. They urged the OCC to be “patient,” resist traditional timing expectations, and increase transparency on how it sets capital, operational, and resilience standards in conditional approvals for crypto related new trust applicants.
Consumer clarity was another pressure point. The association pressed the OCC to tighten naming rules so limited purpose trust banks that are not in the business of banking cannot use “bank” in their names. The goal is to reduce consumer confusion about the status and safety of obligations at uninsured entities. In the lobby’s view, branding should not imply deposit protections, especially when firms operate as custodians and service providers rather than deposit takers and lenders.
This push comes less than two months after the OCC granted conditional national trust approvals on Dec. 12, 2025 to five firms: Bitgo Bank & Trust, Fidelity Digital Assets, Ripple National Trust Bank, First National Digital Currency Bank and Paxos Trust Company. By spotlighting those decisions, bankers signal charter momentum is outpacing guardrails. They are also pressing Congress, via efforts like the CLARITY Act, to curb stablecoin rewards and yield programs they see as effectively bank like.
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