Bastion gets conditional OCC approval to convert into a national trust company

What the OCC approved

The OCC’s Corporate Decision #1391 says Bastion filed its conversion application on March 30, 2026, under Charter Number 27198. The national trust company’s primary place of business would be 216 Bowery in New York City, and the agency also granted a citizenship waiver requested by one of Bastion’s directors.

Bastion said the structure would allow companies to access multiple services through a single federally regulated counterparty rather than assembling separate providers. The company does not issue its own stablecoin, but has positioned itself as infrastructure for firms that want to launch dollar-token programs without building the full stack themselves.

A federal framework for stablecoin infrastructure

Bastion’s approved activities include white-label stablecoin issuance, custody, conversion between fiat currency and USDC for custody clients, and support for other regulated issuers. That combination brings several core stablecoin functions under one roof, which the company argues is better aligned with how banks and fintech firms want to use tokenized dollars.

Chief executive Nassim Eddequiouaq said the OCC approval reflects a shift in the market from experimentation toward more formal governance and supervision. Bastion has been working toward federal oversight since receiving its New York trust charter in February 2025, and it has added board members and advisers with backgrounds at American Express, Morgan Stanley, EY and Optum. The company is backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures and has also partnered with Sony Bank.

Limits of the charter

The approval does not turn Bastion into a full-service bank. Under the OCC’s terms, Bastion Platforms National Trust Company would not be allowed to accept deposits and would not have Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation coverage.

Before it can begin operations, the company must meet all remaining OCC conditions and acquire stock in a Federal Reserve bank. The charter also does not automatically grant access to Federal Reserve payment systems. As described in the source report, the appeal of this structure is federal supervision and trust custody infrastructure rather than a conventional deposit-and-lending model.

Part of a broader charter wave

Bastion’s approval arrives during a broader increase in crypto-related bank charter activity. Comptroller Jonathan Gould said in August that the OCC had received 40 new-bank charter applications over about 18 months, including 23 involving digital-asset activity, which he described as an eightfold increase from the prior four years.

Other firms have also pursued similar structures. Circle received final approval on July 10 to open Circle National Trust after first getting conditional approval in December 2025. According to Davis Wright Tremaine, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos were also among companies that received conditional approvals that same month.

The push is unfolding alongside the GENIUS Act, enacted on July 18, 2025. The OCC proposed implementing rules in February covering reserve assets, redemption, custody, risk management and issuer oversight, and Gould said a final rule is expected by November.

Market impact and the next step

The wider policy debate around stablecoins remains active. Brookings researchers Nellie Liang and Brent Neiman estimated the stablecoin market at about $270 billion as of June 2026, and noted that reserve requirements tied to assets such as Treasury bills could influence demand for short-term U.S. government debt and bank funding. In August, the Bank for International Settlements warned that broader use of dollar-pegged stablecoins could contribute to digital dollarisation in some economies.

There is also legal and political criticism of the charter trend. In a May 18 letter to Gould, Senator Elizabeth Warren said the OCC had approved at least nine national trust charters for crypto companies and argued that some proposed activities went beyond trust-company powers. The OCC took the opposite view in Bastion’s case, concluding that the company’s planned custody, conversion, issuance and issuer-service activities fit within powers permitted under federal banking law.

For now, Bastion’s approval remains conditional. The next confirmed step is for the company to satisfy the OCC’s outstanding requirements before the national trust company can commence operations.