Morgan Stanley has utilized for a de novo nationwide belief financial institution constitution, permitting the financial institution to carry digital property on behalf of its shoppers — a transfer in rhythm with its current crypto growth.
And public filing with the Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money (OCC) reveals the appliance for a financial institution belief constitution was obtained on Feb. 18 beneath the identify “Morgan Stanley Digital Belief, Nationwide Affiliation.”
Extra particulars of the marketing strategy had been launched on Friday, based on that reports from Bloomberg and Forbes, revealing that the Morgan Stanley subsidiary will custody sure digital property and execute purchases, gross sales, swaps and transfers to help shopper funding actions, together with crypto staking.
A nationwide financial institution belief constitution authorizes a monetary establishment to interact in fiduciary actions similar to belief providers, custody and asset safekeeping. “De novo” is a Latin time period for “anew,” which means it’s a newly created entity moderately than an acquired one.
That is Morgan Stanley’s first belief constitution with a selected concentrate on crypto and follows 14 de novo financial institution constitution functions in 2025. There are roughly 60 nationwide belief banks supervised by the OCC within the US.
Rush for crypto financial institution charters
In December, the OCC conditionally approved 5 functions for crypto-related nationwide belief banks, together with First Nationwide Digital Foreign money Financial institution, Ripple, BitGo, Constancy Digital Belongings and Paxos.
Stablecoin platform Bridge, owned by funds processor Stripe, stated it obtained conditional approval for a nationwide belief financial institution earlier this month, which was fallowed by Crypto.com on Monday.
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Days later, Payoneer, a world monetary providers agency, stated it had filed for a nationwide belief financial institution constitution within the US, which might allow it to difficulty a stablecoin and supply numerous crypto providers.
Morgan Stanley doubling down on crypto
Morgan Stanley has accelerated its strikes in the direction of crypto in current months. In January, the Wall Road financial institution tapped fairness markets govt Amy Oldenburg to steer its new crypto unit.
Job listings on LinkedIn present the $2 trillion funding financial institution can also be trying to broaden its crypto workforce, promoting positions for digital property technique director, digital property strategist and digital property product lead.
Morgan Stanley additionally filed to launch spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL) exchange-traded funds in January, and later filed for a staked Ether (ETH) ETF.
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