Paxos applies for U.S. trust bank license with OCC

Paxos, one of the leading regulated stablecoin issuers and tokenization platforms, has filed for regulatory approval to become a national trust bank.

Summary

• Paxos has applied for a national trust charter license from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
• The crypto company eyes regulatory approval to convert its New York issued charter to a national trust charter.
• Paxos joins Circle and Ripple among companies seeking banking licenses in the U.S.

Paxos, which issues PayPal USD (PYUSD) and Pax Dollar (USDP) stablecoins, announced that it is looking to convert its New York Department of Financial Services trust charter into a national trust bank charter. 

The company’s application for a trust bank license is with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Approval to convert from an NYDFS-regulated trust to a national charter would allow Paxos to manage and hold assets on its customers’ behalf. A national trust charter would also allow the Pax Dollar issuer to accept cash deposits and offer loans under applicable regulation.

Circle, Ripple also eye banking licenses

Paxos became the first blockchain firm to obtain a limited trust charter from NYDFS in 2015. The company first filed for a national bank license in 2020, and regulators gave preliminary conditional approval in 2021. However, the application hit a snag and expired in 2023.

Commenting further on the fresh application, Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla, said:

OCC oversight will add to regulatory milestones across Europe and Asia with the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Abu Dhabi Global Market’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority.

The move also sees Paxos join other top digital asset platforms and companies eyeing banking licenses in the United States. 

Circle, the publicly-traded stablecoin issuer of USDC (USDC) and Ripple, the company behind the XRP (XRP) cryptocurrency and Ripple USD stablecoin, recently filed for national trust bank charters. At the moment, Anchorage Digital is the only U.S.-based digital asset platform with a national trust bank charter.