ICBA Newsroom

ICBA sent a letter to the OCC opposing the national trust bank charter application of Wise. ICBA said Wise National Trust’s proposed services—such as multicurrency accounts, debit cards, and cross-border payments—fall outside the intended scope of fiduciary and custodial powers for national trust banks. ICBA also noted that Wise faced a $4.3 million consent order earlier this year for serious BSA/AML/CFT compliance violations and said the OCC should not grant it a national trust charter to expand their cross-border payments business in light of these recent violations.

ICBA and other groups sent a comment letter to the OCC on the national bank charter applications submitted since April. ICBA and the other groups said there are significant policy and legal questions as to whether the applicants’ proposed business plans involve the types of fiduciary activities performed by national trust banks. ICBA and the other groups said they believe that the public portions of the applications do not allow for meaningful public scrutiny, and broader change to OCC policy with respect to trust activities requires public scrutiny.