The traditional banking industry has sought to slow the rise of institutions seeking charters as trust banks that will serve digital asset clients, and Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said such hesitation “would risk reversing innovations.”
“The OCC hears from existing national banks, almost daily, about their own initiatives for interesting and innovative products and services,” he said at the Blockchain Association policy summit on Monday in Washington. “All of this reinforces my confidence in the OCC’s ability to effectively supervise new entrants, as well as the new activities of existing banks, in a fair and impartial manner.”
Gould said the process to apply for new charters (de novo banks) had slowed to a near standstill, but last year there were again 14 applicants, many of them associated with digital assets and other fintech services.
“There is simply no justification to view digital assets any differently,” he said. “Furthermore, it is important that we do not limit banks, including today’s national trust banks, to the technologies or businesses of the past.”
Gould’s agency oversees national banks and trusts and is the sole federal authority to charter banks. The OCC’s granting of charters to cryptocurrency companies had been slow to move forward, and Anchorage Digital maintained its status as the only OCC-licensed cryptocurrency bank for years. But last month, cryptobank Erebor was granted interim status, the first under Gould.
The banking regulator under President Donald Trump’s administration has quickly reversed previous resistance and risk aversion directed at crypto banking, and Gould said the OCC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are jointly preparing rules to remove “reputational risk” from their supervisory regulations.
Gould suggested that the financial system must “evolve from the telegraph to the blockchain.”
And he warned that his agency is reviewing banks’ debanking practices when it comes to cutting services for crypto companies and their executives.
Read more: Coinbase faces criticism from traditional bankers for its push to establish the trust bank
