The 14 de novo charter applications filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in 2025 mark a “return to the norm” for the agency after years of regulatory dissuasion, Comptroller Jonathan Gould told the Blockchain Association on Monday.
This year’s charter applications nearly equal the number the OCC received in the previous four years combined and the increase, particularly for national trust charters, “signals healthy competition, a commitment to innovation, and should be encouraging to all of us,” Gould said at the trade group’s policy summit.
The OCC supervises roughly 60 national trust banks, which focus on fiduciary services like asset management but without the ability to take deposits or make traditional loans.
Bank industry trade groups have pushed back on the influx in national bank charter applications – many of which have been submitted this year by cryptocurrency firms – on the grounds that permitting national trusts to engage in nonfiduciary custody activities is “contrary to OCC precedent.”
Gould, however, asserted that the OCC has allowed national trusts to engage in nonfiduciary custody activity for decades, and said Monday that prohibiting them from engaging in such activities would “not only threaten to undermine the dynamic and evolving nature of the federal banking system but would also disrupt well over a trillion dollars in traditional activities of existing national trust banks.”
Most national trust banks engage in custody and safekeeping, Gould said: In the third quarter, national trust banks held nearly $2 trillion in nonfiduciary custodial or safekeeping assets under administration, making up about a quarter of their total AUA.
“Although the proposed activities of some new charter applicants, specifically those in the digital or fintech spaces, could be viewed as new activities for a national trust bank, custody and safekeeping services have been happening electronically for decades,” Gould said.
“For example, banks, including current national trust banks, routinely hold rights by electronic means to company shares in custody for their customers. There is simply no justification for considering digital assets differently,” he said.
Gould is one of multiple regulators championing an uptick in new bank chartering. Travis Hill, acting chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said in April that new bank formation had “fallen off a cliff” but should instead be encouraged.
