OCC clarifies bank cryptocurrency requirements and trust bank chartering

OCC Chief Counsel's Interpretive Letter #1179 has been published to confirm that national banks and federal savings associations must demonstrate that they have adequate controls in place before they can engage in certain cryptocurrency, distributed ledger, and stablecoin activities. The letter provides a roadmap for banks to engage with their supervisory office to provide written notification of their proposed activities and outlines the criteria that the OCC will follow to evaluate the proposed activity and provide a supervisory non-objection. If the bank receives a supervisory non-objection, the OCC will review these activities as part of its ordinary supervisory processes.

The interpretive letter also clarifies OCC standards for chartering National Trust Banks. The OCC may look to state law to determine if an applicant’s activities are limited to the operations “of a trust company and activities related thereto,” but an applicant’s activities will not automatically be deemed to be trust activities—or to be fiduciary activities—solely by virtue of state law. The OCC retains discretion to determine if an applicant’s activities that are considered trust or fiduciary activities under state law are considered trust or fiduciary activities for purposes of applicable federal law.

• OCC press release
• Bulletin 2021-57