The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has announced its conditional approval of five national trust bank charter applications.
Following this announcement, being subject to meeting the OCC’s conditions, these institutions are set to join approximately 60 other national trust banks currently supervised by the OCC.
In addition, during the process of granting these conditional approvals, the OCC applied the same rigorous review and standards it applies to all charter applications. The OCC also reviewed each application, based on its individual merits, consistent with applicable statutory and regulatory factors.
Keeping pace with the development of financial services
According to the official press release, new entrants into the overall federal banking sector are good for consumers, the banking industry, and the economy, while also providing access to new products, services, and sources of credit and ensuring a dynamic, competitive, secure, and diverse banking system. With this in mind, the OCC is expected to continue to provide a strategy for both traditional and optimised approaches to financial services in order to ensure the federal banking system keeps pace with the evolution of finance and supports a modern economy.
The OCC has conditionally approved applications for de novo national trust bank charters for First National Digital Currency Bank and Ripple National Trust Bank. At the same time, the OCC also conditionally approved applications to convert from a state trust company to a national trust bank for the following institutions: BitGo Bank & Trust, National Association, Fidelity Digital Assets, National Association, and Paxos Trust Company, National Association.
The federal banking system was developed in order to include more than 1.000 national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches of foreign banking organisations operating in the US that range in size from 1.000 smaller community banks under USD 30 billion in assets that were focused on meeting local needs to the largest internationally active banks. Moreover, these banking companies aim to conduct a wide array of businesses that range from retail and wholesale banking activity to trust, credit card, and other more narrowly focused services. The businesses and institutions that make up the federal banking system conduct approximately 67% of the banking activity in the region of the US, hold more than USD 17 trillion in assets combined, and administer more than USD 85 trillion under their control.
