Community Bankers' Group Sues OCC Over National Trust Charters Granted to Crypto Firms
The Independent Community Bankers of America argues the agency exceeded its authority under the National Bank Act by chartering firms that perform largely non-fiduciary activities, and wants a March 2026 rule and a specific conditional approval vacated.
WASHINGTON — The Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade association representing thousands of community banks, filed suit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on October 2 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit alleges the OCC exceeded its statutory authority under the National Bank Act by granting national trust bank charters to cryptocurrency and fintech firms whose primary activities are not fiduciary in nature.
Specifically, the ICBA is seeking to have the court vacate the OCC's March 2, 2026 final rule, a related agency interpretive letter (No. 1176), and the conditional approval the OCC granted to Protego Holdings Corporation for a national trust charter. The group argues these actions effectively create a regulatory shortcut: crypto and fintech firms can obtain the credibility and market access of a federal bank charter while avoiding the capital, liquidity, and consumer-protection requirements that apply to depository institutions.
The suit lands amid a broader wave of trust-charter applications and conditional approvals the OCC has issued or is reviewing for digital-asset firms this year, several of which have been covered on this site as they sought to consolidate state-by-state licensing under a single federal charter. The ICBA's challenge, if successful, could unwind some of those approvals or force the OCC to apply a narrower reading of what qualifies as a fiduciary trust activity going forward; the OCC had not filed a public response as of this writing.