Statement: AFREF Denounces World Liberty Financial Conditional Bank Charter Approval

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 14, 2026

CONTACT: Jarice Thompson, jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org 

AFREF Denounces  World Liberty Financial Conditional Bank Charter Approval

Statement of Patrick Woodall, managing director at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) exceeded its statutory authority and longstanding judicial precedent to unlawfully grant a conditional bank charter to a trust bank controlled by the Trump family crypto firm World Liberty Financial (WLF). The rush to bestow the special powers of bank charters on crypto firms dangerously blurs the congressionally mandated barrier between banking and commerce, posing considerable risks to customers and the stability of the financial system that could lead to public bailouts of foundering crypto banks. 

This is just another example of the crypto industry’s demand to access all of the benefits of the mainstream financial system without complying with the statutory obligations or requirements for banks. The OCC should have rejected the application because WLF Trust will not fulfill the fiduciary requirement for trust bank charters or based on WLF’s business relationships with convicted money-launderers (some subsequently pardoned by Trump) and foreign investors, including a 49 percent stake by a United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund that also has two board seats on the WLF parent company. Today’s approval follows the OCC’s rubber-stamping of the Coinbase, Ripple, Paxos, and other crypto bank applications.