OCC Finds Nine Major US Banks Restricting Crypto Customers

Regulators find banks blocked crypto access for five years

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the federal bank regulator, said on October 14 that all nine major national banks it oversees maintained policies restricting financial services for crypto customers. The review covered the period from 2020 through September 2025.

The report said "many institutions" restricted banking services for digital-asset issuers, exchanges, or administrators, often citing financial crime concerns. The OCC did not provide a list of which banks imposed the harshest restrictions or how many crypto customers were affected.

What the OCC report found

• All nine largest national banks under OCC supervision had policies limiting crypto-related banking access.
• Restrictions ranged from outright bans to extra scrutiny and approval requirements.
• Banks lacked clear, measurable standards for judging "reputation risk" — the potential damage to a bank's image from working with a customer.
• Restrictions also affected other industries, including firearms, oil and gas, coal, private detention facilities, and tobacco.
• No bank-specific fines, corrective orders, or prosecutor referrals were announced.

Scope of the investigation

The OCC review examined nearly 100,000 complaints, tested hundreds of individual bank decisions, and reviewed about 420,000 pages of bank documents. The regulator said it could not fully measure the extent of debanking or its costs to customers.

The banks covered were JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank and BMO Bank — the nine largest national banks by assets when the review began.

Banks say they have changed

Several banks told the OCC they had narrowed or removed some industry restrictions, including those affecting digital assets. However, some said they kept restrictions tied to sanctions, money laundering, or other financial-crime concerns. A few business lines still limited services to crypto firms because they lacked the expertise, controls, or operational capacity to manage the risks.

JPMorgan Chase pushed back against claims of political debanking. In a January 22 statement responding to a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump, the bank said it does not close accounts for political or religious reasons and that account closures were driven by legal or regulatory risks.

What comes next

OCC Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould said the changes some banks reported may not be enough. The agency is considering new rules to curb discrimination and limit banks' use of subjective reputation-risk judgments. Gould said the OCC will assess further changes to the regulatory framework for the largest banks to prevent these practices from recurring.

The agency also noted that a bank's debanking record can already factor into licensing decisions and Community Reinvestment Act examinations, which assess how well banks meet the credit needs of their communities.

Context

The findings follow a Justice Department probe, reported by the Wall Street Journal in June, which examined subpoenas into JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo over potentially unlawful account closures for political reasons. The OCC report builds on a December 2025 preliminary report that covered industry restrictions between 2020 and 2023.

What is confirmed

The OCC found that all nine major banks under its review maintained policies that restricted crypto and other industries' access to banking services between 2020 and September 2025. The agency is considering further rulemaking but has not announced penalties for any specific bank.

What is still unclear

The OCC did not release a bank-by-bank breakdown of which institutions restricted crypto services the most, nor did it provide a count of affected crypto customers. It also said it could not comprehensively quantify the overall scale of debanking.

Why this matters for crypto

Debanking — the practice of banks cutting off financial services to entire industries — has long been a concern for crypto businesses in the United States. Without access to traditional banking, crypto companies struggle to manage everyday operations like payroll, payments, and cash management. Regulators signaling that they may impose new rules could push banks to create clearer, more consistent policies for serving crypto customers.

Sources

• The Defiant
• OCC official announcement
• OCC report

Read also: OCC Report Links Crypto Debanking to Financial Crime Concerns, Lacks Specific Examples