U.S. Bankers Urge OCC to Slow Crypto Trust Bank Charters

• The American Bankers Association called upon the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to throttle the approval. 
• Banking groups raised the following, including unresolved regulatory obligations under the GENIUS Act and safety concerns about uninsured trusts.

The American Bankers Association has filed a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The letter has requested a slowdown on the approval of cryptocurrency trust bank charters. According to the American Bankers Association, the regulators should wait for greater clarity to emerge on the procedures of how the regulations of the GENIUS Act work. The letter indicated that the association has expressed concerns to regulators. It warned of unresolved issues regarding safety and soundness regarding the oversight of certain classes of uninsured digital asset trusts.

ABA Seeks Clearer Charter Rules

According to the American Bankers Association, the processing of applications without a clear definition from all regulators is not advisable. The group has expressed concerns regarding the operational risks of these trusts, which present a challenge for the occurrence of charters. The banking groups have expressed concerns regarding the possible conflict of interest. According to the letter, these charters might avoid oversight from the SEC or CFTC. However, they require regulators to perceive the scope of each application before approval.

More than timing, however, the ABA pressed the OCC to look to charter naming rules that would ensure there is no consumer confusion between trust banks and traditional banks. Such clarity, it remarked, would help uninsured entities be differentiated from deposit-taking institutions. The association also called for greater transparency in how capital and operational standards are calibrated for crypto charters, which would, in turn, support a more informed review process. 

The ABA’s intervention comes amid five conditional charter approvals recently issued by the OCC for five digital asset firms. Those charters include the likes of BitGo Bank and Ripple National Trust Bank. Last December 2025’s approvals by the OCC allow for national supervision without deposit-taking functions. The evolution in this area of regulation has been met with reactions that range from open to skeptical among traditional banks.

Regulatory Uncertainty and Industry Debate

Bankers have claimed that the slow pace of the GENIUS Act rulemaking process is a contributor to this uncertainty in the charter process. Notably, the act demands several reports from different agencies prior to full regulatory clarity. Fierce critics of the accelerated chartering process have claimed that outstanding issues related to the resolution authority could make the financial system vulnerable to potential risk. Furthermore, ABA claimed that the existing field of overlapping jurisdictions by various federal and state bodies still affects the processes for stablecoin and digital assets. Some of the conventional banking entities have cited past insolvency-related matters as a metaphor. 

These organizations have claimed that the resolution of such processes could make the banking system vulnerable to potential risks. However, the urgency of the chartering processes is not the only factor affecting crypto companies. The race for charter approval is important from a different point of view. Some of the prominent digital asset companies have apparently sought charter approval from the OCC. They aim to provide the federal government with recognition for their respective custody, payment, and settlement-related processes and other digital assets.

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