As Coinbase Applied for OCC Charter Withheld Policies Now Rubber Stamp Approval

As Coinbase Applied for OCC Charter Withheld Policies Now Rubber Stamp Approval by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack SOUTH BRONX/SDNY, April 3 – With the US Congress passing the cryptocurrency GENIUS Act, Ripple Labs as well as Circle and others, have applied for banking charters to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.   In October 2025 Coinbase applied. Inner City Press FOIAed the many withheld exhibits.   On October 11 Fair Finance Watch filed a timely comment with the OCC, including:    FFW is troubled that Coinbase is trying to withhold basic policies, amid compliance including privacy violations. Also, this should be subject to the Community Reinvestment Act; inquiry is needed into Coinbase's vague statement that "Coinbase’s products and services are designed to enable individuals and small businesses across the economic spectrum to benefit from the unique advantages presented by crypto assets." How? Inner City Press has submitted a FOIA request for the policies, and request for expedited treatment. The comment period should be extended.     Note for example that  "Coinbase already knew about the leak of its customers’ data a full four months before the major breach. In practice, the crypto-exchange had declared in May to the SEC that it was aware of the fact that hackers had accessed employee data “without work necessity” in the “previous months.” The insider employees have been located at its outsourcing partner, TaskUs. The key episode of this affair occurred in Indore, India, where the TaskUs employee was caught photographing the work computer screen with her personal cellphone. According to five former employees of the company, the woman was involved in an illicit operation of transferring sensitive Coinbase customer data to hacker groups, possibly in exchange for bribes. The application stated that it would be exempt from the Community Reinvestment Act - FFW disagrees... Consider: ”A new class action lawsuit alleges Coinbase collects and shares biometric data without first obtaining user consent. Plaintiffs Scott Bernstein, Gina Greeder and James Lonergan filed the class action complaint against Coinbase on May 13 in Illinois federal court, alleging violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (IFCA). According to the lawsuit, Coinbase uses facial recognition technology to verify users’ identities but fails to obtain the required consent from users before collecting their biometric data. The lawsuit claims that Coinbase’s identity verification process involves users uploading a photo of their government-issued ID and a selfie. The company then uses facial recognition software to analyze and compare the images, generating a unique digital representation of the user’s face, known as a face template or face scan. However, the plaintiffs allege that Coinbase does not inform users that their biometric data is being collected or provide them with the required notice and consent forms, which is a violation of the BIPA. Coinbase allegedly shares users’ biometric data with third-party vendors The lawsuit further alleges that Coinbase shares users’ biometric data with third-party vendors, such as Jumio and Onfido, without obtaining users’ consent. These vendors provide the facial recognition software used by Coinbase, and the lawsuit claims that they also store users’ biometric data on their servers. "    FFW wrote in October that it would have more to say when it receives responses to its and Inner City Press' FOIA requests. Months later on January 27, 2026 the OCC wrote to Inner City Press: "Good afternoon Mr. Lee, After further review, I see that we processed the Coinbase application in 2026-00045-F, which was provided to you yesterday, January 26, 2026. We are also processing the second portion of your request (communications) in 2026-00045-F, so we will close this request as a duplicate. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you would like to discuss first. Thank you, Pauline." What's to discuss? On April 2, the OCC rubber stamped Coinbase's application. Watch this site. *** Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron. Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com Mail: Box 130222, Chinatown Station, NY NY 10013 Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540 Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.  Copyright 2006-2026 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com