OCC Enables Banks to Act as Crypto Brokers

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has confirmed that banks will be allowed to act as intermediaries on crypto transactions.

The regulator has issued updated guidance stating that banks can take part in “riskless principal”  crypto transactions without facing additional regulatory scrutiny.

These deals, which are already common in traditional markets, involve a bank briefly sitting in the middle of a trade: it buys a cryptoasset from one customer and immediately sells it to another. Because the two trades are matched almost instantly, the bank avoids market risk and doesn’t hold any crypto for longer than a moment.

In these trades, a bank buys a cryptoasset from one customer and, at virtually the same moment, sells it to another. Because the two transactions are matched, the bank does not take on market risk and does not hold cryptoassets on its books, aside from a momentary transfer of ownership.

The OCC said this setup is effectively the same as a broker acting on behalf of clients, and falls within banks’ existing powers under the National Bank Act. The model is similar to how banks already handle perfectly-matched derivatives trades, where they temporarily hold an asset only to pass it on immediately in a separate, offsetting transaction.

By treating these crypto trades as a natural extension of long-standing intermediation activity, the OCC has given banks greater clarity on how they can support customers seeking exposure to digital assets without taking speculative positions themselves.

According to the regulator, offering this type of regulated access is increasingly seen as a core service for high-net-worth and institutional clients who want to transact in crypto but prefer to do so through familiar, supervised channels.

The OCC also noted that acting as a riskless principal fits neatly with services banks already provide to custody clients, suggesting the model could become a standard part of how traditional institutions facilitate crypto trading in the future.