- OCC allows riskless crypto trades by national banks
- Banks must meet compliance and risk controls
- Guidance marks shift in federal crypto policy
The rules on digital assets by the OCC provide national banks with a clear mandate to enable their clients to transact risk-free cryptocurrency transactions. The direction enables institutions to perform as intermediaries without the digital assets on their balance sheets or market risk. The regulators refer to the move as a step in integrating the digital asset brokerage into the banking system, based on the established federal standards.
How the OCC clarifies bank authority for digital asset trades
An interpretive letter by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency made it clear that the banks are allowed to conduct paired cryptocurrency trades on behalf of customers. The structure resembles riskless principal transactions, which institutions have been conducting over the decades in traditional securities markets. Some of the applicants informed the agency that this strategy would increase accessibility to regulated digital asset services and minimize exposure to unregulated trade platforms.
My experience in adhering to federal financial regulations has revealed that interpretive letters of this nature tend to be significant points of reference to the institutions assessing new business lines. The OCC also highlights the fact that the activity is within the scope of powers granted by 12 U.S.C. Section 24, which allows the riskless trading in principal as the core of national banks’ business.
The guidance further indicates that the legal status of a digital asset, both as to whether the asset is a security or not, does not alter the possibility of the riskless structure. The same standard process can be used by banks in the securities market and the non-securities market.
Risk controls and compliance requirements for banks
According to the OCC, banks should ensure that any digital asset operation is in line with their charter and state or federal law. The internal systems required are also essential in institutions that check the capacity of operations, the compulsory requirements, and the possible market exposure. Counterparty credit risk during settlement is the most important area that the agency points out, yet it notices that this risk is regularly handled by banks in other assets.
Technically, the settlement risk of such transactions is similar to the exposure that banks have when mediating transactions in a foreign exchange or fixed income market. The stance of the OCC implies that established risk frameworks do not need replacement, as they can be adapted, which could assist institutions in ensuring that digital asset operations can be incorporated without changing the structure of the institution as much.
Federal policy shift toward digital asset integration
This is released after the remarks of the Acting Comptroller Jonathan Gould, who claimed that institutions seeking a federal charter must be assessed using the same set of criteria regardless of whether they are dealing with traditional finance or digital asset markets. His comments can be seen as a larger pivot in the federal policy since early 2025, when the new administration had indicated a more lax attitude toward the industry.
Groups in the industry have long been claiming that increased scrutiny of banks that provide services to cryptocurrency users discouraged innovation. The new OCC digital assets regulations suggest that there is a shift into regulatory normalization and expectations of banks in the field of digital assets.
