OCC says major banks are easing digital asset restrictions, with limits

For years, crypto companies trying to open a bank account often felt like they were applying to an exclusive club with no posted rules. The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency now says the door is opening, at least partway.

The OCC reports that major banks have eased some restrictions on digital asset businesses. It also says those banks still may restrict some of them.

What the OCC actually reviewed

The regulator examined nine of the largest national banks in the country. The list includes JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank, and BMO Bank.

The review covered how these institutions treated digital asset businesses from 2020 through September 2025. The OCC released its findings on October 14.

The scope was large. Examiners went through nearly 100,000 complaints and about 420,000 pages of bank documents.

The core finding: over that period, these banks put restrictive policies in place that limited the services available to digital asset entities. The main stated driver was concern about financial crime, particularly anti-money laundering risk.

Crypto was not alone on the restricted list. The report places digital assets among several sectors that faced limits, alongside industries such as firearms and tobacco.

Reputation versus real risk

The sharpest line in the findings came from Comptroller Jonathan Gould. He indicated that many of the restrictive policies were shaped more by reputational risk than by genuine financial considerations, though financial crime concerns continued to play a meaningful role.

The OCC also admitted a limit to its own findings. The agency said it had difficulty precisely quantifying how widespread “debanking” actually was across the banking system.

According to the report, many of the banks have started relaxing these restrictions as part of internal policy reviews. Those reviews reach across multiple industries, not just digital assets.

How we got here

The report did not appear in a vacuum. It follows President Trump’s August 2025 executive order aimed at addressing unlawful debanking practices.

It also fits a broader run of supervisory changes at the OCC. Since March 2025, the agency has issued a series of interpretive letters clarifying what banks are allowed to do with digital assets.

The most notable was Interpretive Letter 1183, issued in March 2025. It rescinded earlier requirements that banks obtain a non-objection from regulators before engaging in certain digital asset activities.

The interpretive letters since then have broadened the range of allowable activities, including custody and stablecoin-related services. The condition attached to all of it is the same: banks must conduct permitted activities safely and manage the associated risks appropriately.

What this means for crypto firms and banks

For digital asset businesses, the most practical takeaway is that the largest US banks are, by the regulator’s account, loosening their stance. But the OCC’s own language leaves room for continued rejections. Banks still may restrict some digital asset businesses, and financial crime concerns remain a legitimate basis for doing so.

For banks, the shift moves the burden. Instead of defaulting to a blanket no, they are expected to run risk-based assessments of individual clients.

The OCC could not fully measure the scale of past debanking, which makes it harder to measure how much has changed.