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- ICBA wants a federal court to invalidate the OCC’s 2026 trust bank rule.
- The dispute centers on whether trust banks can conduct substantial non-fiduciary activities.
- Coinbase, Ripple, Paxos and other digital-asset firms have received OCC approvals.
- Several crypto companies still have applications pending before the regulator.
The banking industry’s fight over crypto’s access to the U.S. financial system has moved from regulatory lobbying to federal court.
The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) sued the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Oct. 2, challenging the legal framework the regulator uses to charter national trust banks that conduct crypto-related activities.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, targets the OCC’s 2026 national bank chartering rule, earlier interpretive guidance and the conditional approval of digital-asset custodian Protego.
ICBA wants the court to invalidate the rule and guidance, block their use for future charter decisions and vacate Protego’s approval.
The case could reach further than a single charter. The OCC has already approved or conditionally approved federal banking applications involving Coinbase, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and other digital-asset businesses, while a separate queue of applicants continues to seek access to the federal system.
ICBA Is Challenging the Rule Behind the Charters
At the center of the case is a deceptively narrow change to the OCC’s chartering regulation.
The agency’s final rule amended 12 CFR 5.20 by replacing language centered on “fiduciary activities” with the broader statutory wording “operations of a trust company and activities related thereto.” The rule became effective April 1.
That wording determines how far a national trust bank can move beyond traditional trust functions.
The OCC says national trust banks can conduct non-fiduciary activities when those activities are otherwise authorized under federal banking law. It also maintains that the rule merely clarified authority the agency already possessed rather than creating a new charter.
ICBA’s reading is much narrower.
“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,” ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said in announcing the suit.
The group argues that Congress did not design national trust charters as an alternative route for companies whose primary businesses extend beyond fiduciary trust activities.
That disagreement over statutory language is now the core legal question before the court.
Why a Trust Charter Is Valuable to Crypto Firms
A national trust bank is not equivalent to an ordinary deposit-taking national bank.
Coinbase’s application, for example, describes its proposed entity as a non-insured national trust company. The OCC granted preliminary conditional approval in April but made clear that Coinbase National Trust Company cannot begin business until it satisfies its pre-opening requirements and receives final authorization.
The distinction matters because a trust charter can provide federal supervision and a national operating framework without turning the company into a conventional retail bank.
ICBA argues that this difference creates an uneven regulatory structure. In its statement, the group pointed to Community Reinvestment Act obligations, consolidated supervision, capital and liquidity standards and FDIC insurance requirements that apply to insured depository institutions but do not necessarily attach in the same way to non-depository trust banks.
The OCC takes the opposite view of the chartering question. Its February rule says a national trust bank is still legally a national bank, albeit one whose articles limit it to trust-company operations and related activities.
That means the lawsuit is not simply asking whether crypto companies should become banks. It is asking what Congress allowed the OCC to define as a national trust bank in the first place.
Crypto Firms Have Already Moved Through the OCC Pipeline
The timing of the lawsuit is important because the federal charter route is no longer theoretical.
In December 2025, the OCC conditionally approved applications involving BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paxos and Ripple, among others. Coinbase National Trust Company received preliminary conditional approval on April 2, 2026. OCC.gov
The regulator has continued processing applications since then. Its published decisions include Bridge National Trust Bank, National Digital Trust Company and Foris DAX National Trust Bank, while its current digital-assets application list includes Payward National Trust Company, the proposed trust company associated with Kraken, alongside EDX Trust, zerohash and other applicants.
That pipeline gives the litigation practical consequences.
An ICBA victory targeting the underlying rule and guidance could force the OCC to reassess the legal basis it uses when reviewing trust-bank activities. The precise effect on previously approved charters would depend on the scope of any court order and the status and terms of each institution’s approval.
It would therefore be premature to assume that every crypto trust charter would automatically disappear if ICBA prevails.
The OCC’s own final rule anticipated judicial scrutiny. In the Federal Register, the agency wrote that courts must independently determine whether it has acted within its statutory authority when a party with standing challenges a charter under the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Fight Has Shifted From Policy to Statutory Authority
ICBA has already opposed aspects of crypto legislation and policy that it believes could weaken the role of community banks, including stablecoin rewards and access to the banking system. ICBA.org
This case gives that broader dispute a much narrower legal test.
The court does not need to decide whether crypto companies are desirable competitors to community banks. It must consider whether the OCC’s interpretation of its chartering authority fits the National Bank Act and whether the agency lawfully adopted the rule and guidance ICBA is challenging.
That distinction could make the case relevant well beyond crypto. The contested rule applies to all applicants seeking national bank charters limited to trust-company operations and related activities, not exclusively digital-asset businesses.
The OCC has declined to comment on the pending litigation. The next material development will come in the District of Columbia case itself, when the agency formally responds and the court gets its first detailed view of the competing interpretations of the OCC’s authority.
