I. Introduction

Largely unknown to the public, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) plays a critical role in ensuring financial stability. Housed within the Department of the Treasury, the OCC shares bank supervision responsibilities with both the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The OCC has the authority to approve bank charters and ensure that banks comply with both consumer protection rules and capital and liquidity requirements. As with many other financial regulators, the OCC has often worked to accommodate, rather than meaningfully scrutinize, the very financial institutions it’s supposed to oversee.

Under the second Trump administration, financial regulators have received unusual levels of attention. The assault on the Fed’s independence and the CFTC’s capitulation to prediction markets garnering significant attention. In contrast, the OCC’s affairs receive little scrutiny. This is despite the ongoing weaponization of the nation’s bank examiner for the president's partisan crusade against so-called 'debanking'". The lack of attention to OCC development since 2025 is also peculiar given its role in accommodating the policy goals of the crypto industry.

The Trump-era OCC’s decision to give conditional approval to the Trump family-linked World Liberty Financial’s proposed trust bank did not draw the scrutiny it warranted. A recent lawsuit by the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) over the OCC’s misapplication of the national trust charter to assist crypto firms may help draw attention to the oft-forgotten regulator. The ongoing corruption of the OCC’s functions is particularly disappointing given that in 2021, real pro-consumer change at the OCC looked like a possibility.

II. The OCC's Role in Financial Stability

BACKGROUND

Created in 1863 during the Lincoln presidency, the OCC predates financial regulation agencies created in the aftermath of the Great Depression like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The modern OCC supervises 989 institutions, holding $18 trillion in assets in total. This figure represents around 68% of commercial banking assets in the United States. As part of its mandate, the OCC is responsible for issuing bank charters and imposing corrective measures in the event that an examination reveals a failure to comply with the law.

Bank assessments generate the overwhelming share of the OCC’s funding, constituting over 96% of OCC revenue in 2021. The OCC’s fee-dependent structure poses potential conflicts of interest since it is financially dependent on the very private entities it is supposed to oversee. This arrangement is not unique, and is similar to how agencies like the Patent and Trademark Office are dependent on user fees in lieu of congressional appropriations. As a result of this revenue structure, the OCC faces the institutional risk that it could see its operating budget collapse should major Wall Street banks flip their charters away in favor of chartering under state law. Unsurprisingly, the OCC has a track record of being highly accommodating towards major financial institutions. In the 21st century, the OCC has undermined consumer protection causes at various points.

Prior to the financial crisis, the George W. Bush-era OCC issued 2004 rules shielding national banks from many state consumer protection laws, including restrictions on predatory mortgage lending. A 2006 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report said the rules “raised concerns among some state officials and consumer advocates.” During the Obama administration, the OCC was criticized for initiating weak rule changes to the Bush-era preemption rules. At the time, the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) argued that the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 had curtailed the agency’s ability to preempt these state laws, and that the new changes were cosmetic in practice.

Nevertheless, there have been select instances in which the OCC has advocated for consumers' interests. In 2013, for instance, the OCC and FDIC both issued guidance that forced banks to assess if borrowers had the means to repay "deposit advance" loans. Deposit advance loans, a form of de facto payday lending by large institutions, often featured exorbitant APRs that desperate consumers were unable to pay. The next year, both Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank announced they would no longer provide deposit advance loans. The OCC has undertaken pro-consumer actions by fining major institutions over unlawful credit card practices and adopting broader overdraft guidance.

Unfortunately, even in instances in which the OCC has taken a pro-consumer approach, the agency’s approach has long been mired in late interventions. In January 2010, OCC examiners questioned Wells Fargo management about roughly 700 whistleblower complaints involving sales incentives, then failed to follow up adequately, its 2017 review found. In 2016, the OCC fined Wells Fargo $35 million over the fake-accounts scandal, part of $185 million in total penalties from multiple regulators. In 2018, the Trump-era OCC relieved Wells Fargo of ordinary golden-parachute limits and advance-notice requirements for new executive appointments, while replacing them with narrower oversight for specified executives.

PROSPECTS FOR CHANGE IN 2021

Following Joe Biden’s election, advocates pushed for a pro-regulation OCC nominee, with law professor Mehrsa Baradaran an early favorite among consumer groups. Ultimately, Biden would nominate a different pro-consumer figure, Saule Omarova. Throughout her career, Omarova had taken a critical approach towards financial industry giants, especially the concerns posed by corporate concentration in the sector. Rather than accommodate the crypto industry and its growing political power, Omarova questioned whether private stablecoin infrastructure controlled by large companies could undermine the dollar and put payment infrastructure in private hands.

Omarova’s nomination would ultimately result in a nasty and bruising confirmation battle. On a fundamental level, her critics objected to a nominee who did not regard banks as merely clients of the OCC. Her opponents in the Senate engaged in red-baiting, with Sen. John N. Kennedy (R-LA) rhetorically asking if he should call the Cornell law professor “professor” or “comrade.” Opponents engaged in shameless xenophobia, with her birthplace in Soviet-era Kazakhstan and education at Moscow State University brought up in the public eye. In response, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the Senate Banking Committee’s chair, denounced the line of questioning as “character assassination.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce strongly opposed her nomination. The group claimed that financial regulation proposals she endorsed while in academia would have amounted to a “near complete government takeover of banking.” Omarova’s opponents claimed that she wished to abolish private bank accounts, a claim rejected by fact checkers. In reality, Omarova had once explored a proposal for Fed-held accounts as a thought experiment in a Vanderbilt Law Review paper; at no point did she indicate an interest in pursuing a similar initiative at the helm of the OCC. Even as the White House denounced the “unacceptable red-baiting” she was subject to, several Democrats in the 50-50 Senate would break with the administration. With Sens. Mark Kelly, Jon Tester, Mark Warner, Kyrsten Sinema and John Hickenlooper reported to oppose her, she withdrew on December 7, 2021.

III. Trump-Era OCC's Dereliction of Duty

CAPTURE BY CRYPTO INDUSTRY

Historically, the revolving door between agencies like the OCC and “traditional finance” has been obvious. Joseph Otting, who served at the helm of the OCC during the first Trump administration, came from a tenure at banks, including as president and CEO of OneWest Bank and as an executive at U.S. Bank. He later became Flagstar Financial's chief executive. John Dugan went from Covington & Burling to the OCC, served as comptroller from 2005 to 2010, then became Citigroup's board chair in 2019.

At the tail end of Trump’s first term, the revolving door at the OCC would begin to shift in the direction of the cryptocurrency industry: Brian Brooks, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, became acting head of the OCC in May 2020, serving until 2021. Under his short tenure, the agency began opening bank custody to crypto assets and allowed certain stablecoin payment activities. In his last week in office, the Brooks-led OCC conditionally approved crypto firm Anchorage's trust-bank charter; he would go on to become CEO of Binance.US just months later.

In the second Trump administration, Jonathan Gould, a former OCC chief counsel who later became Bitfury’s chief legal officer, was tapped to lead the OCC. Under Gould, the OCC's December 2025 conditional approvals included crypto companies Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and First National Digital Currency Bank (Circle’s proposed trust bank). By May 2026, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said the OCC had given conditional approval to at least nine crypto trust charter applications since December 2025. The OCC also gave preliminary conditional approval to World Liberty Financial’s proposed trust bank; an entity affiliated with Trump and certain family members owns 38 percent of World Liberty Financial, according to the company.

On October 2, the ICBA sued the agency in federal court, arguing the OCC exceeded its authority by conditionally approving national trust charters for crypto firms engaged in substantial nonfiduciary business. Rebeca Romero Rainey, the president of the ICBA, said “Congress did not create the national trust charter as a side door into the banking system for crypto firms.” Given that the proposed trust banks would not offer FDIC-insured deposits, the ICBA noted that federal charters could give these firms the credibility of a bank without subjecting them to the full obligations of insured banks. Ironically, the ICBA had opposed the nomination of crypto-skeptic Omarova in 2021 to lead the OCC.

RIGHT-WING GRIEVANCE POLITICS AND DEREGULATION

Four years ago, Omarova's nomination collapsed amid a campaign to tar her as a radical over her support for consumer protection efforts. Today, the Trump-era OCC has abandoned its statutory responsibilities in favor of Trump's personal and political grudges. Rather than hold financial institutions accountable, the OCC now takes aim at banks over baseless “debanking” claims. In December 2025, the OCC released “preliminary findings” as part of its weaponized probe into supposed discrimination against digital assets, as well as firearms and fossil fuel companies. Unsurprisingly, two of the banks named as part of this “probe” are in the midst of litigation with the Trump family: Trump himself sued JPMorgan over account closures, while Eric Trump and the Trump Organization sued Capital One. It's worth noting that even research from right-leaning organizations have rejected claims that "debanking" is a widespread phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the same regulator preoccupied with unfounded debanking claims has paused fair lending exams. In doing so, the OCC has hindered the ability of regulators to review which banks are discriminating against borrowers. The OCC is also making it harder for its own examiners to catch problems in the financial system before they spiral out of control. In September, the OCC and FDIC finalized a joint rule that narrowed what counts as an unsafe or unsound practice, and in the process barred examiners from acting on reputational risk alone. A separate OCC proposal would prevent examiners from issuing formal “Matters Requiring Attention,” a tool used to force banks to take action on identified issues, for violations the agency deems merely “technical.” The cost of letting warnings about financial issues pile up is well documented. Though supervised by the Federal Reserve and not the OCC, the case of Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed in 2023 after 31 unaddressed supervisory warnings, is illustrative.

IV. Conclusion

By giving politically connected crypto firms conditional trust charter approvals without imposing the full rules governing insured banks, the OCC is making a mockery of its own powers. In 2021, an OCC nominee who wanted to see the office serve consumers’ interests was subject to a smear campaign over her national origin in an effort to tar her as a radical. Today, the Trump-era OCC has become a haven for cryptocurrency interests and conservative cultural crusades over supposed “debanking.” It’s crucial that the next Democratic administration takes seriously the task of reconstituting the OCC as a real vehicle for bank supervision.

The OCC should not treat the banks it oversees as clients that should be accommodated at every turn. It’s also important that the OCC’s revolving door with the crypto industry is shut to prevent further policy capture. Michael Hsu, the Biden-era acting OCC head, had argued in favor of federal prudential supervision of stablecoins in 2021. In 2025, after Hsu left public service, he joined venture capital firm Core Innovation Capital. The firm notably lists Ripple among the companies it has backed. The next Democratic president must choose an OCC nominee with a proven record of standing up to both big banks and crypto firms.