Modern Treasury seeks US stablecoin trust charter

TLDR

Modern Treasury is seeking a US national trust bank charter so it can offer regulated custody and movement of stablecoins alongside fiat for institutional clients.

1. Modern Treasury applied to the OCC to create Modern Treasury National Trust Bank, a limited-purpose trust bank focused on stablecoin and fiat custody.
2. The proposed bank would not issue its own stablecoin or make loans, but would integrate stablecoin rails with traditional payments under federal oversight.
3. The move joins a broader wave of crypto and payments firms pursuing US trust charters, which is now facing legal and political pushback.

Deep Dive

1. What Modern Treasury Is Asking For

Modern Treasury, a payments infrastructure company, has applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish Modern Treasury National Trust Bank, a federally regulated limited-purpose national trust bank focused on digital asset custody and related fiat services. The company says the bank would let customers custody and move stablecoins and US dollars through a unified service, but it would not itself issue stablecoins or make loans, and it would operate separately from Modern Treasurys existing payments business that has processed more than $600 billion for hundreds of organizations. This setup mirrors other trust-bank models where the charter is used for custody, settlement and reserve management rather than full-service retail banking.

2. How The Trust Bank Would Operate Around Stablecoins

According to Modern Treasurys announcement, the proposed bank would focus on securely holding customers stablecoins and fiat and enabling integrated movement between the two, treating stablecoins as foundational economic infrastructure for the future that is already embedded in its payments platform. Because the bank would not issue its own stablecoin, it positions itself as neutral infrastructure for whichever compliant dollar-backed tokens clients use, potentially reducing direct regulatory risk around issuance while still relying on the GENIUS Act and OCC guidance that define permissible stablecoin activities for trust banks. For crypto users and enterprises, this kind of regulated custodian can serve as a bridge between onchain settlement and traditional treasury operations.

3. The Broader Charter Wave And Pushback

Modern Treasurys application sits within a growing wave of crypto and payments firms seeking national trust charters, with Bastion and Ripple reportedly having conditional approvals and Circle and BitGo gaining final approvals, while Krakens parent Payward, Zerohash and Block have also applied. At the same time, community banks have sued the OCC, arguing that its chartering framework lets high-risk crypto and digital-asset firms enter the banking system under lightly regulated national trust charters that lack deposit insurance and full bank obligations. That lawsuit aims to overturn the OCCs 2026 chartering rule and a key interpretive letter and could, if successful, slow or reshape approvals for applicants like Modern Treasury, though the case remains undecided.

Conclusion

Modern Treasurys bid for a US national trust charter signals that stablecoin rails are moving from pure crypto venues into mainstream, regulated payments infrastructure. If the OCC continues approving such charters despite legal challenges, institutional users could gain safer, more integrated ways to use stablecoins alongside fiat, but the long-term scope of these banks will depend on how regulators and courts balance innovation against traditional banking safeguards.