Payward, the parent company of Kraken's crypto exchange, has applied for a national trust company charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, according to a statement.
The application seeks to establish the Payward National Trust Company, or PNTC.
"PNTC expects to serve institutional clients and individual customers seeking regulated, bank-level custody and trust services for digital assets, leveraging Payward's existing infrastructure, risk management, compliance programs, and regulated affiliates to deliver services in a secure and compliant manner," Payward said in a statement.
Payward's application for an OCC charter follows Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based crypto exchange, receiving a conditional approval for its own national trust company charter about a month ago. Ripple has also received a conditional approval.
"Our long-held belief has always been that the right path forward for digital assets runs through robust, transparent regulation," Payward and Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi said in the statement. "A national trust company provides the certainty institutions require and establishes the infrastructure to build the next generation of custody."
A trade group whose board includes big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America at one point considered filing a lawsuit against the OCC over the regulator's move to grant national trust bank charters to crypto and fintech firms.
The powerful banking advocacy group considered arguing that the OCC is failing to "heed repeated warnings" about its “reinterpretation of federal licensing rules."