The traditional banking industry has sought to slow the influx of institutions seeking to become trusted banks serving digital asset customers, and Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said such hesitation “would risk reversing innovations.”
“The OCC hears almost daily from existing national banks about their own initiatives for exciting 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 new activities of existing banks in a fair and impartial manner.”
Gould said the process of applying for new charters – de novo banks – had almost stopped, but had come back to 14 applicants over the past year, many of which were associated with digital assets and other fintech services.
“There is simply no justification for looking at digital assets differently,” he said. “Furthermore, it is important that we do not limit banks, including today’s national trust banks, to the technologies or activities of the past.”
The Gould Agency supervises national banks and trusts and is the sole federal bank chartering authority. The OCC’s granting of charters to crypto companies has been slow to move forward, with Anchorage Digital maintaining its status as the only OCC-chartered crypto bank for years. But last month, crypto bank Erebor was granted an interim charter, the first under Gould’s leadership.
The banking regulator under President Donald Trump’s administration has quickly reversed resistance and risk aversion targeting crypto banks, and Gould said the OCC and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. together prepared rules to eliminate “reputational risk” from their supervisory regulations.
Gould suggested that the financial system must “evolve from telegraph to blockchain.”
And he warned that his agency was reviewing banks’ bank withdrawal practices when it comes to suspending services to crypto companies and their executives.
Read more: Coinbase faces criticism from traditional bankers over its push for a trusted bank charter
