In January 2026 the Comptroller of the Currency proposed a rule change to clarify that national trust bank charters do not limit these banks to providing fiduciary services. This is particularly relevant because most of the recently chartered digital asset banks don’t provide fiduciary services, but many provide (non-fiduciary) custody. The comment period closed last week with 15 comments received. Traditional banks and state bank supervisors oppose the wording change but special purpose banks support it.
This is a rerun of the opposition expressed by traditional banks when a group of digital asset firms applied for national trust bank charters in the middle of 2025. The objection was also on the grounds that these trust banks are not providing “fiduciary” services. Technically, providing custody is regarded as a mainstream banking service, not a fiduciary service, so they argued that this was a backdoor to becoming a full bank.
The Comptroller’s proposal is to replace a couple of rule references that currently use the term “fiduciary activities” with “the operations of a trust company and activities related thereto”. The OCC argues that this change is really just a clarification, because it is national banks that are misinterpreting previous wording. By contrast the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), the American Bankers Association (ABA) and others view the change as very material indeed. The ABA even requested that these new national trust charters be prohibited from including the word “bank” in their name, unless they are a subsidiary of a bank.
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