Coinbase’s Trust Company Draws Criticism From Banking Sector

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase last week won conditional regulatory approval for a national banking trust charter.

And much like previous approvals, this one has drawn criticism from the banking sector, represented here by The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA).

Soon after Coinbase announced that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) had granted permission to charter Coinbase National Trust Company, the ICBA issued a statement in opposition to the approval.

“Today’s conditional approval of Coinbase’s trust charter application is a grave mistake that will only serve to put U.S. consumers at risk,” ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said. “As ICBA detailed in our letter to the OCC opposing Coinbase’s effort to procure a national trust charter, its application fails to meet requirements of the National Bank Act and the OCC’s own regulations and standards.”

Rainey added that the group has “significant concerns” with the OCC’s chartering rule for national trust banks, saying it was not in keeping with the regulator’s authority as laid out in “legislative history, judicial interpretations, and the agency’s own internal precedent.”

In announcing the OCC approval last week, Coinbase International Co-CEO Greg Tusar said the company had no plans to become a commercial bank.

“We will not be taking retail deposits,” he said. “We will not be engaging in fractional reserve banking. This charter is about bringing federal regulatory uniformity to the custody and market infrastructure business we have been building for years.”

As covered here in October, many FinTechs are turning to bank charters as a means to expand their reach and their product lines by cutting through state-by-state licensing and getting direct access to the U.S. financial system.

“Without a bank charter, FinTechs must stitch together a patchwork of state money-transmitter licenses and rely on partner banks for access to the Federal Reserve system,” PYMNTS wrote. “With a charter, they can unlock nationwide reach and access to the payments and settlement rails that keep commerce moving.”

The ICBA has previously joined with other industry groups including the Bank Policy Institute (BPI), the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) and Fair Finance Watch (FFW) in opposing Bridge’s application for a national trust bank charter.

The last year has seen a huge uptick in FinTechs going the same route. In 2025 alone, the OCC received 14 de novo charter applications, a figure nearly equaling the total applications received by the agency in the prior four years put together.

As of mid-March, the regulator had already approved four new applications and received more than seven.