| OCC Tries to Close FOIA
Request on Crypto Bank as Silent on Fair
Finance Watch on WLTC
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
SOUTH
BRONX/SDNY, Jan 26 –
Amid the FDIC's bid to
eliminate public notice of and
public comment on branch
applications, UBS -- Union
Bank of Switzerland -- is
trying to convert to a
national bank in the US and
become a bank holding company.
The OCC has denied the public
hearing request by Fair
Finance Watch.
Meanwhile fellow
money laundering settler Bunq
is applying to the OCC for a
bank, along with a higher
profile application by WLTC
also protested by FFW.
While Inner
City Press simultaneously
challenged Bunq and WLTC, by 7
pm on January 14 the OCC had
only acknowledged FFW's
comment on Bunq - nothing on
WLTC - even now on January 26,
while the comment period is
running, set to expire on
February 9 after a January 6
filing.
This as the
OCC says its reviews are
apolitical.
Or perhaps it is
just incompetence: on January
26, the OCC sent a FOIA
response: "Good morning Mr.
Lee, Your request 2026-00059-F
is a duplicate of your
previous request 2026-00045-F,
which we have already received
and are processing. As a
result, we will
administratively close the
duplicate request and continue
processing the original
request."
But the requests
are entirely different: they
are about entirely different
digital bank applications. And
still the comment periods
run...
See, e.g., Sept
10, 2025: https://www.americanbanker.com/opinion/the-fdic-is-undercutting-a-key-element-of-the-cra
But now the
Federal regulator(s) blithely
propose(s) to eliminate public
notice and public comment on
banks' proposals to
expand. The above-quoted
reasoning is that few comments
are filed. So, that is now
changing.
***
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