TechFlow News, March 9: According to an exclusive report by The Guardian, the Bank Policy Institute (BPI), a lobbying group representing 40 major U.S. banks—including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup—is evaluating whether to file a lawsuit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
The dispute centers on the OCC’s significant relaxation of federal chartering rules under the Trump administration, which makes it easier for cryptocurrency, payment, and fintech companies to obtain national bank trust charters—thereby granting them the authority to operate across all 50 U.S. states. BPI contends that this move allows such firms to enter the financial system without being subject to regulatory standards as stringent as those applied to traditional banks, thereby increasing systemic risk, undermining consumer protection, and blurring the legal definition of “bank.”
BPI has previously issued multiple warnings to the OCC and formally requested that it deny charter applications from Circle, Ripple, and Wise—requests that were not heeded. Notably, World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture backed by the Trump family, submitted its own trust charter application in January this year.
BPI has not yet reached a final decision, and the OCC has declined to comment.
