Japanese Banking Giant’s Crypto Subsidiary Applies for US Banking Charter

In brief

• The Nomura-owned Laser Digital applied for a U.S. OCC charter to launch a crypto-focused national trust bank.
• The bank would offer digital asset custody and spot trading under full U.S. regulatory oversight.
• It joins a surge of crypto firms seeking bank charters after passage of the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act last year.

The crypto-focused subsidiary of Japan’s largest investment bank has joined the growing list of digital asset firms seeking a coveted banking charter from the U.S. Treasury Department. The subsidiary, Laser Digital, is based in Switzerland and owned by the Nomura Group, the Tokyo investment banking and brokerage giant. On Tuesday evening, Laser announced it had filed an application with the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to form a national trust bank.  The bank, Laser Digital National Trust Bank, would focus on digital assets and offer custody and spot trading services, the company said. 

“Institutional digital asset markets are entering a new phase defined by scale, regulation, and durability,” Steve Ashley, Laser Digital’s chairman and the proposed chairman of the Laser Digital National Trust Bank, said in a statement. “The U.S. is the most important financial market globally, and we believe the next chapter of digital finance will be written by firms that are prepared to operate at that level of scrutiny and permanence,” he continued. The company joins a long line of crypto firms seeking to cash in on the Treasury Department’s new, far more permissive approach to bank charter applications from crypto companies. In recent months, stablecoin issuers including Circle, Ripple, BitGo, and Paxos have all received OCC national trust banking charters, as did a “Lord of the Rings”-inspired bank backed by Peter Thiel and the co-founders of Palantir.

Numerous other crypto mainstays, including Coinbase, Sony, and payments processor Stripe, have applied for lucrative bank charters, which have become increasingly attractive after President Donald Trump signed the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act into law last summer. The Trump family’s own crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, applied for an OCC bank charter earlier this month.