OCC Finds Nine Major U.S. Banks Restricted Crypto Firms' Banking, but Can't Measure the Scale

Published October 15, 2026, 06:15 UTC. Based on the OCC's 47-page debanking report and news release of October 14, 2026 (primary), with reporting from adbytes.media, crypto.news, coindesk.cc, cryptotimes.io and crypto-economy.com (secondary).

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has found that all nine of the largest national banks it supervises had policies restricting financial services for digital-asset businesses, but said it could not determine how many firms were actually affected. The findings, published in a 47-page report on October 14, 2026, mark the first time a federal banking regulator has documented industry-wide restrictions against crypto companies in writing.

The nine banks on the list

The OCC named JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank and BMO Bank in its news release accompanying the report, according to cryptotimes.io. All nine institutions, the agency said, maintained public and nonpublic policies during the period reviewed that restricted services to lawful commercial sectors, including digital assets, alongside oil and gas, coal, firearms, detention facilities and tobacco. The OCC said the banks relied on operating directives lacking objective financial risk criteria to deny or terminate services, and that restrictions ranged from categorical onboarding bans to tiered reviews designed to discourage onboarding legitimate clients.

Crypto issuers, exchanges and administrators in the crosshairs

For digital assets specifically, the report identified issuers, exchanges and administrators as the business types subject to restrictions. Banks often said financial-crime concerns informed their limits, the OCC said. "Many institutions also placed restrictions on banking digital asset activities, including on issuers, exchanges, or administrators, often attributed to financial crime considerations," the agency wrote in the report. The finding lands as documentary support for what crypto industry advocates have called "Operation Chokepoint 2.0," the claim that U.S. banks systematically cut crypto firms off from payment rails after the collapses of crypto-friendly banks Silvergate and Signature in 2023. The report itself stops short of confirming the industry's political claims: it does not establish that officials under former President Joe Biden pressured banks to withdraw crypto services, according to adbytes.media.

What the report could not prove

The OCC's findings come with large gaps. The 47-page report gave no specific examples of debanking tied to digital-asset activities, did not establish how many businesses were affected, and did not determine whether any particular bank acted unlawfully. "A policy restricting services does not, on its own, prove that a customer was denied an account or lost one," the OCC wrote. The agency said it was "unable to quantify on a comprehensive basis the full extent of debanking or alleged debanking actions" after reviewing records generated between 2020 and September 2025. The report also did not name each bank's individual policies, so it is not possible to tell from the document which of the nine restricted crypto clients the most or how often the policies were actually applied.

The August 2025 executive order behind the review

The review followed President Donald Trump's August 2025 executive order, "Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans," which set a federal policy against denying financial services because of protected beliefs, affiliations or political views. Under the order, banking decisions should rest on objective, risk-based assessments of each customer. In remarks accompanying the report, Comptroller Jonathan Gould challenged the reputational-risk justifications banks gave for pulling back from coal, saying, "These decisions were not based on financial risk," and citing negative headlines, public protests and reputational consequences. That quote concerned coal, not crypto, and should not be read as a finding about why banks restricted digital-asset services. Venture capitalist Nic Carter, a prominent debanking critic, argued that separating political exclusion from ordinary business decisions is difficult, because regulatory pressure can make a customer expensive to serve, which lets a bank present an account closure as a routine commercial call, per coindesk.cc.

What happens next: CFPB probes and the charter question

The enforcement picture is already moving. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on October 14, 2026, the opening of formal investigations into financial exclusion practices at banks, according to crypto-economy.com. Separately, the OCC's report framed crypto firms' banking troubles as distinct from the separate question of access to the national banking system itself. Comptroller Gould has said digital-asset companies conducting legally permitted activities should have a path into the U.S. national banking system. A charter application is not an approval, and it does not guarantee a firm ordinary banking services, but the report raises the question of whether lawful crypto businesses can seek a place inside the regulated banking system rather than fighting for accounts outside it. For crypto executives, the report is both a win and a warning: a regulator has now put the restrictions on paper, but with no names, no numbers and no penalties attached, the scale of the problem remains exactly as disputed as before.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• OCC news release and 47-page debanking report, October 14, 2026, primary source for the finding that all nine supervised banks had public and nonpublic policies restricting digital-asset businesses, the affected business types (issuers, exchanges, administrators), the financial-crime rationale, the named banks, the "unable to quantify" caveat, the absence of specific crypto account-closure examples, and the quoted lines on restrictions and the limits of the evidence
• adbytes.media, "OCC Finds Crypto Banking Restrictions but Cannot Measure Their Scale" (October 15, 2026), secondary source for the 47-page length, the 2020 to September 2025 review window, the finding that no specific crypto examples were given, the fact that the report did not name banks individually, and the analysis that the report does not establish Biden-era political claims or prove unlawful discrimination
• crypto.news, "Crypto debanking: OCC finds bank restrictions but cannot gauge full scale" (October 2026), secondary source for the summary of affected business types and the context of the Trump executive order
• coindesk.cc, "OCC report ties bank limits to crypto, cannot measure scale" (October 14, 2026), secondary source for Comptroller Jonathan Gould's "These decisions were not based on financial risk" remarks on coal and Nic Carter's argument about regulatory pressure and commercial account closures
• cryptotimes.io, "OCC Finds Debanking Policies at Nine U.S. Banks, Including Crypto Firms" (October 14, 2026), secondary source for the nine named banks and the OCC's statement that the policies "required, encouraged, or otherwise influenced" service denials
• crypto-economy.com, "OCC Flags Debanking Policies at Nine US Banks, Including Crypto Firms" (October 2026), secondary source for the CFPB's October 14, 2026 announcement of formal investigations into financial exclusion practices
• Executive Order "Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans" (August 2025), secondary source for the objective, risk-based banking-decisions policy the OCC review was responding to