| At OCC Nomura Crypto Bank
Plan Withheld as Silent on Fair Finance Watch
on WLTC
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
SOUTH
BRONX/SDNY, Feb 2 –
Amid the FDIC's bid to
eliminate public notice of and
public comment on branch
applications, Nomura is trying
to get a crypto bank license
from the US Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency.
On February 2
Fair Finance Watch filed
opposition:
"On behalf of
Fair Finance Watch, this is
opposition to the (re)
application for a bank charter
for Nomura's proposed Laser
Digital National Trust Bank
and AGAIN to WLTC NA, on which
FFW has repeatedly commented
with no response from the
OCC.
Nomura is counting on today's
OCC to shield it from the
Community Reinvestment Act, as
is WLTC, stating
"Community Reinvestment Act
(CRA) Plan... Not
applicable."
We note
Inner City Press' pending and
unacted on - not even yet
acknowledged - FOIA
requests.
These business plans should be
released. They are supposedly
about the community - but it
is being hidden. Be aware that
for example the Utah
regulator, on PayPal's
application there, recently
after Inner City Press
submitted a state FOIA request
released PayPal's proposed CRA
plan.
Why is the OCC allowing
proposed new banks to withhold
their business
plans?
Significant adverse issues
exist as to Nomura. For the
record on this
application: Nomura
Holdings Inc.’s loans to an
investment fund embroiled in a
short-selling firm’s
allegations against Indian
billionaire Gautam Adani have
come under scrutiny in a
London lawsuit and see Nomura
Denies Overcharging Investor
$3.8M To Cover Tax and
see Nomura Says Fund's $49M
Claim Is 'Misconceived'
FFW will
have further comments when the
requested information is
released by the OCC - the
comment periods must be
extended.
The OCC including Comptroller
Gould are on record promising
ever-faster review and
approval of
applications. Whatever
the (lack of) merits of the
OCC's belated denial of a
public hearing on UBS, one is
clearly needed on WLTC.
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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