The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted preliminary conditional approval on May 29, 2026 to Laser Digital National Trust Bank - a wholly owned subsidiary of Laser Digital, the digital asset arm of Japan's Nomura Group - to operate as a de novo federally chartered national trust bank. The announcement, carried by Reuters at 18:42 UTC that day, marks the first time a subsidiary of a major Japanese financial institution has cleared this regulatory threshold in the United States.
The approval follows a charter application filed January 27, 2026, by Laser Digital Americas Group Holdings Inc. with the OCC in New York under docket 2026-Charter-344710. Laser Digital, headquartered in Zurich, holds existing licenses from the UAE's VARA and ADGM but has lacked a federal US banking charter. The OCC's conditional green light puts that infrastructure under a single federal supervisory framework.
What the bank will and will not do. The charter explicitly restricts the entity from deposit-taking and lending. Instead, Laser Digital National Trust Bank will serve institutional clients across three functions: multi-asset fiduciary custody of digital, tokenized, and traditional assets; FX and stablecoin intermediation to facilitate cross-currency settlement across fiat, stablecoins, and digital instruments; and collateral management enabling institutions to mobilize assets across multi-venue margin accounts and execute cross-margining between digital and traditional asset classes.
"Institutions have been asking for custody, collateral mobility and currency intermediation across fiat and stablecoins, in one regulated structure," said Purvi Maniar, Laser Digital Group Chief Legal Officer and President of Laser Digital National Trust Bank. Maniar added that the firm's immediate focus is on satisfying the OCC's final pre-opening conditions, including minimum capital requirements, before it can begin operations.
Part of a broader OCC charter wave. The Laser Digital approval is the eighth conditional trust bank charter the OCC has granted to a crypto or fintech firm since December 2025. The prior seven: Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets, Bridge (a Stripe subsidiary), and Crypto.com. At least 15 digital asset firms have applied for OCC charters since the start of 2025, according to Cryptopolitan, reflecting a structural shift in how Wall Street and global financial institutions are building regulated infrastructure around digital assets in the US.
Why Nomura's entry is different. Most of the preceding charter recipients are crypto-native firms. Nomura is a different profile - one of Japan's largest investment banks, with deep roots in traditional capital markets across equities, fixed income, and investment banking. Its digital asset subsidiary has built out institutional products over roughly three years, including yield-bearing crypto funds, OTC trading strategies, and structured treasury solutions. Laser Digital entering the US trust bank framework signals that major TradFi institutions with Asian headquarters are now pursuing direct federal regulatory presence in the US digital asset market, rather than relying on partnerships or foreign-licensed intermediaries.
The Bank Policy Institute, the US banking lobby, has pushed back on the OCC's broader charter-approval pace, accusing some digital asset applicants of "not planning to operate genuine trust companies" and warning the regulator is blurring the definition of a bank. The OCC has continued approving applications regardless.
What comes next. Preliminary conditional approval is not a final operating license. Laser Digital must meet all OCC pre-opening conditions - including satisfying minimum capital requirements - before it can open and take on client business. The OCC's filing page for Laser Digital National Trust Bank (occ.gov, docket OCC-2026-0199) remains the authoritative tracker of the firm's status through that process.
The approval positions Laser Digital to eventually offer institutional clients a single federally supervised counterparty for custody, stablecoin settlement, and collateral management - capabilities that have previously required multiple regulated entities in multiple jurisdictions.