U.S. Regulator Pushes Back on Banks Fighting Crypto's Pursuit of Trust Charters

Source: CryptoNewsNet Original Title: U.S. Regulator Pushes Back on Banks Fighting Crypto’s Pursuit of Trust Charters Original Link: The traditional banking industry has sought to slow down the surge of institutions seeking charters as trust banks that will serve digital assets customers, and Jonathan Gould, the chief of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said such a hesitancy would “risk reversing innovations.”

“The OCC is hearing from existing national banks, on a near daily basis, about their own initiatives for exciting and innovative products and services,” he said at the Blockchain Association’s 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 even-handed manner.”

Gould said the process to apply for new charters — de novo banks — had shuddered nearly to a stop, but it’s back up to 14 applicants in the past year, with many of them associated with digital assets and other financial technology services.