Community bankers are suing the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) over approvals of national trust bank charters for cryptocurrency companies.
The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) filed the lawsuit on October 2nd, 2026, in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia under the Administrative Procedure Act.
The suit challenges a March 2nd, 2026, final rule and related guidance that the group says improperly expands the OCC’s power to charter national trust banks for non-fiduciary activities, including substantial crypto operations.
The complaint seeks to overturn the rule and vacate the conditional approval granted to at least one crypto firm, Protego Holdings Corp.
The OCC has approved or conditionally approved 21 such charters, with at least 13 going to crypto companies.
“These approvals violate the law because they exceed the OCC’s statutory authority. They are also arbitrary and capricious because the OCC ignored warnings from commenters, including ICBA, that Protego and other crypto companies had severely flawed risk and control functions and governance structures that lack independent oversight. They are thus at serious risk of failure if the volatile cryptocurrency market crashes.”
According to the ICBA, the OCC’s decision to allow companies to obtain national trust bank charters to conduct substantial non-fiduciary activities exceeds the authority Congress granted the agency.
Says ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey,
“Congress did not create the national trust charter as a side door into the banking system for crypto firms seeking the credibility of a federal bank charter without the Community Reinvestment Act obligations, consolidated supervision, capital and liquidity standards, and FDIC insurance that apply to insured depository institutions.”
The OCC’s final rule and Interpretive Letter No. 1176 “perversely regulate trust banks far more lightly than traditional banks, allowing entities engaged in highly risky cryptocurrency and digital assets activities to enter the banking system under the national trust charter rather than the more rigorously regulated traditional bank charter,” the lawsuit states.
Prior to the recent approvals, the OCC had never chartered a national bank that neither took deposits nor engaged in fiduciary activities.
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