A US trade group comprised of some of the country’s largest banks is reportedly considering suing the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), saying that granting crypto-firm bank charters could put Americans and the financial system at risk.
The Banking Policy Institute (BPI) is considering legal options after the OCC ignored warnings from banking groups to reinterpret federal licensing rules, according to a Monday report by The Guardian, citing a “source familiar with lobbying.”
In December, the OCC granted conditional charters to several crypto companies, including BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Ripple, and Paxos. Since then, a growing number of other crypto companies have followed suit.
Blockchain infrastructure company Zerohash filed on February 27. The OCC also granted conditional licenses to Crypto.com, Bridge and Stripe in February.
Trump-backed Liberty Financial also applied for a charter in January to expand its stable use of USD1, but is still awaiting a decision.
The BPI, which counts major US institutions such as Goldman Sachs, American Express and JPMorgan among its members, is also concerned that cryptocurrency companies with fiduciary bank charters pose a risk to the wider financial system.
A trust bank charter is a federal license from the OCC that authorizes a company to operate as a trust bank under federal law and to engage in trust activities such as trust services, custody, and custody of assets.
The banking group is yet to make a final call
According to The Guardian, the BPI has not yet made a final decision on whether to initiate legal proceedings against the OCC. Cointelegraph has contacted the Bank Policy Institute for comment.
related to: Bankers urge OCC to slow crypto trust charters until GENIUS rules clear
In October, BPI issued a statement calling on the OCC to deny the national trust company’s charter requests from a group of crypto companies, including Ripple and Circle. BPI argued that granting these charters would result in less supervision than would be required of full-service national banks.
BPI was also among a group of banks and trade associations that filed a lawsuit against the Federal Reserve in late 2024 over its stress-testing framework for assessing the health and soundness of the banking sector. The feds have since agreed to reconsider parts of the framework and the case has been put on hold.
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