The OCC today granted conditional approval for the conversion of the South Dakota-chartered Anchorage Trust Company to become Anchorage Digital Bank.
Anchorage Trust offers custody services primarily for institutional investors that transact in digital assets and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. As part of the conditional approval and operating agreement, the bank will limit its business to the operations of a trust company.
The American Bankers Association has urged the OCC to provide sufficient information and time to assess these trust charters with novel business models, noting in previous comments that “granting these applications would represent a fundamental departure from existing OCC precedent and such a shift demands public input.”