Morgan Stanley seeks OCC green light for digital-asset trust bank
In June the OCC gave Morgan Stanley conditional approval to form a national trust bank to internalize custody, staking, transaction administration and lending collateral support.
Morgan Stanley received preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on June 18 to create Morgan Stanley Digital Trust, a national trust bank chartered under the firm’s holding company. The OCC record classifies the filing as a new bank charter with trust powers.
The public application describes the subsidiary as a wholly owned national trust bank that would provide custody, purchases, sales, swaps, transfers, fiduciary staking and collateral administration to support digital-asset lending across Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
The filing says that, if Morgan Stanley receives final OCC authorization and meets supervisory conditions, the trust bank would retain client assets and handle day-to-day operations of institutional accounts internally, including staking administration and the collateral work tied to affiliate lending.
Corporate Decision 1378 sets regulatory and capital requirements for final approval. The trust bank must hold at least $50 million in Tier 1 capital, maintain a defined pool of liquid assets and have liquidity sufficient to cover 180 days of operating costs. Final authorization will depend on the OCC confirming those and other supervisory conditions.
The application identifies several functions that would remain outside the trust-bank charter. Access to execution venues, trading liquidity, lending counterparties, validator operations and broader blockchain infrastructure involve external relationships and implementation choices that the bank does not plan to internalize.
The filing delineates the services Morgan Stanley plans to keep in-house and the market and chain-level functions it expects third parties to provide. The trust bank is proposed to serve Wealth Management clients and to support affiliate lending activities.
Final implementation will depend on Morgan Stanley meeting the OCC’s capital, liquidity and supervisory requirements and on operational decisions about how the trust bank will connect to external execution, custody and infrastructure providers.
Articles by this author
