Crypto custody services provider Anchorage has reportedly been successful in securing a bank charter from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). 

Specifically, as disclosed on January 13th by the OCC, Anchorage will be granted a conditional greenlight to function as a trust entity across the nation. 

The type of charter is reportedly unprecedented, and is included in a wider concept of a “fintech charter” dated back to when Barack Obama was still the POTUS, but has been carried out with enhanced progress speed, when Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks – previously a member of Coinbase legal team – took the mantle. 

“As an enforceable condition of approval, the company entered into an operating agreement which sets forth, among other things, capital and liquidity requirements and the OCC’s risk management expectations.” Anchorage’s continued charter will reportedly come with particular requirements. 

The actual agreement between Anchorage and the OCC reportedly outlined a point, around which discussions have been revolving, regarding the fintech charter – the fact that the new kinds of banks will not hold deposits. 

“The Bank shall not engage in activities that would cause it to be a “bank” as defined in section 2(c) of the Bank Holding Company Act.”

During the same interview, Head of Elliptic Simone Naimi laid out a question to Brooks, regarding the expected timeline for the first such national charter for a crypto bank. Brooks reportedly gestured that it will be a plan down the pipeline. 

Until now, registration of that kind has reportedly been finalized state-by-state, but applying for crypto has only been in the recent time. In summer last year, Wyoming reportedly granted Kraken authorization, to operate as the first crypto-native bank in the U.S.