The OCC has a third answer on fintech charters, and it does not announce it

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency returned Zerohash's national trust bank charter application last month without reaching a decision, and did not formally announce that it had done so ^[1]. According to American Banker's review of the agency's CAS database, it is the only recent bank charter application returned without a decision ^[3], which means the dozens of fintechs in the charter pipeline ^[4] now have a third possible exit to plan around ^[1].

The sequencing is the part worth noting. The return arrived one month after the OCC said it would include returns as an option in the fintech charter process ^[2]. The agency declined to comment on why it returned this particular filing ^[5]. So the first recorded use of a newly disclosed procedural option surfaced through a database entry rather than a press release, and the only public explanation of it comes from the applicant.

Zerohash's account is that this was housekeeping. The company said its initial application "covered a wide range of digital asset and fiduciary services" and that it has "since decided to take a sequenced approach to the authorization of services, with a more focused approval of national trust activities aligned with our intended rollout timeline" ^[6]. It called the return "an administrative process that allows us to refile this month," said the step was taken in coordination with the OCC, and said it "is not a substantive decision on the merits" ^[7]. A spokesperson said Zerohash plans to refile by the end of August but had not done so as of publication ^[8]. The company also said the return does not affect current operations ^[9], while continuing to list the charter application as pending in multiple places ^[10].

Take that framing at face value and the cost is still real. On the company's own timeline, the interval between the return and a refiling is measured in weeks, and the substantive review clock starts again on a re-scoped filing ^[2]. That is legal spend, revised organisational documents, and a hiring plan that has to hold: Zerohash is actively recruiting for multiple executive roles at the proposed trust bank ^[11], and its current chief compliance officer and chief legal officer, Gardner, is the proposed chief executive of Zerohash National Trust Bank ^[12].

Laurel Loomis Rimon, a partner at Jenner & Block and co-chair of its fintech and crypto assets practice, told American Banker that the administration has signalled openness to services such as stablecoins while still running an "extensive oversight regime" over fintech charter applications ^[13]. She described "a bit of this gold rush feeling of, 'Oh wow the doors have opened, let's see if we can get in,'" which she linked to recent public rejections ^[14], and said narrowing the issues a regulator has to decide generally improves the odds, though globally structured crypto groups find separateness harder to demonstrate ^[15].

The unresolved background does not help narrow anything. Zerohash is defending two pending state court cases involving former chief compliance officer Edgar Guerra, a former Federal Reserve examiner hired in 2022 and terminated in early 2023 ^[16]. Guerra's February 2025 wrongful termination suit in California alleges he brought more than 250 compliance issues to the board in December 2022, in a report prepared in response to NYDFS inquiries ^[17].

Watch whether the refiling actually lands by month end, and whether the CAS database starts showing returns as a routine entry rather than a one-off. If it does, the honest planning assumption for any fintech charter applicant is approval, denial, or a quiet reset with no stated reasons.