Laser Digital files application to launch a crypto trust bank in the US
Laser Digital, Nomura’s digital-asset division, has applied to establish a U.S. national trust bank to support custody and trading of digital assets.
Laser Digital, the digital-asset arm of Japan’s investment bank Nomura, has submitted an application to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish the Laser Digital National Trust Bank – a national trust institution focused on serving institutional clients in the digital-assets sector.
The proposed bank would provide custody for cryptocurrencies and U.S. government securities, along with access to spot trading in both digital and fiat currencies. It also plans to offer staking services for digital assets held in custody by Laser Digital.
If approved, Laser Digital would join a small group of crypto firms that have obtained a federal trust charter. Ripple, Circle Internet, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos previously received similar preliminary authorizations.
According to Purvi Maniar, Laser Digital’s general counsel and the prospective president of the new bank, institutional clients want to engage with digital assets through familiar, regulated and reliable structures. A national trust-bank framework, she said, provides exactly that architecture.
Laser Digital is already licensed in the UAE and operates digital-asset management products, OTC trading and corporate treasury solutions. In January, the firm launched a diversified bitcoin yield fund built on tokenization.
The proposed bank will not accept deposit accounts at launch and does not plan to offer securities trading. Its core mandate is to provide institutional clients with a secure, regulated infrastructure for digital-asset operations and to support the migration of traditional finance into digital formats.
The OCC’s review is expected to be a pivotal step for Nomura as it expands its presence in the U.S. digital-asset market – one of the most competitive and tightly regulated in the world.
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