The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) analyzed the practices of nine major national banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank, and BMO Bank. The review covered the period from 2020 through September 2025 and involved examining nearly 100,000 complaints and 420,000 pages of documents.
The findings, released on October 14, 2026, indicate that these banks previously implemented restrictive policies toward digital asset firms, often citing concerns over financial crime and anti-money laundering risks. Comptroller Jonathan Gould noted that these policies were frequently driven by reputational risk rather than purely financial considerations.
Following an executive order from President Trump in August 2025 regarding unlawful debanking, many banks have begun relaxing these restrictions as part of internal policy reviews. The OCC has also issued several interpretive letters since March 2025 to clarify permissible activities, such as custody and stablecoin services.
Interpretive Letter 1183, issued in March 2025, removed the requirement for banks to obtain regulatory non-objection before engaging in certain digital asset activities. Despite these shifts, the OCC acknowledges that banks may still restrict specific businesses based on risk-based assessments, and the agency noted difficulty in quantifying the full scale of past debanking.
