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Today, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), alongside the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) (collectively, the agencies), with concurrence from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), issued an order granting an exemption from a specific requirement of the Customer Identification Program (CIP) Rule under § 326 of the USA PATRIOT Act. This exemption allows financial institutions to use alternative methods to collect Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), (e.g., Social Security Number, individual taxpayer identification number, or employer identification number) information from third-party sources rather than directly from customers. The order applies to accounts at all entities supervised by the agencies.

After years of uncertainty and regulation by enforcement, the U.S. may finally be moving toward a more comprehensive framework for the regulation of digital assets. On June 4, 2025, the House Committee on Financial Services held a hearing on American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets: From Blueprint to a Functional Framework. The hearing followed Committee Chairman French Hill’s introduction of H.R. 3633 — the CLARITY Act of 2025 (the Act) — on May 30, 2025. The Committee is expected to continue its markup of the Act at its June 10, 2025, Full Committee Markup hearing.

Following the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation brought against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 2024,[1] on February 5, 2025, the FDIC released hundreds of pages of documents related to its supervision of banks that engaged in, or sought to engage in, crypto-related activities during the last administration. Acting Chairman Hill’s decision to release these documents reflected “a commitment to enhance transparency, beyond what is required by the [FOIA], while also attempting to fulfill the spirit of the FOIA request.”[2]

The Treasury Department has taken initial steps to implement the Trump administration’s “total elimination” policy directed at certain drug trafficking cartels. Most recently, on May 1, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an alert advising about a rising trend of oil smuggling from Mexico across the U.S. border led by several cartels.

On April 10, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Division of Corporation Finance (the Division) issued a statement aimed at providing greater clarity on the application of federal securities laws to crypto assets. These offerings may involve equity or debt securities of issuers whose operations relate to networks, applications, and/or crypto assets. The offerings may also relate to crypto assets offered as part of or subject to an investment contract (such a crypto asset, a “subject crypto asset”). The statement does not modify or amend existing rules, but instead tries to translate the traditional disclosure requirements for the unique realities of the crypto asset universe. Notably, the statement also does not address whether or not crypto assets are deemed securities for purposes of federal securities laws, rather, the statement addresses disclosure requirements for those issuers offering crypto assets as part of or subject to an investment contract.

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Troutman Pepper Locke’s Securities Investigations + Enforcement Practice

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On April 8, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) officially notified Congress of a significant information security incident involving its email system. This notification, mandated by the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, follows the discovery of unauthorized access to OCC emails and attachments that included highly sensitive information related to the financial condition of federally regulated financial institutions.

Guest contributors: Ashley Harris, Thomas Scott, and Isabelle Corbett Sterling, BakerHostetler

This is the final article in our three-part series focused on a key question: as bank-fintech partnerships continue to play a vital role in driving financial services, how does the industry make this system safer and better?

In this final part of our series, we propose a DLT-based account ledgering model designed to prevent failures like Synapse while offering broader benefits. Previously, we examined Synapse’s collapse, the misplaced trust in its ledgers, and potential regulatory responses,[1] including concerns about the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) proposed recordkeeping rule (Records NPR).[2]

In 2024, employers rushed to track the twists and turns of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) noncompete ban, which attempted to limit the enforceability of agreements that restrict employees from working for a competitor following employment. Though the FTC’s ban has since fizzled out, the commotion around noncompetes also led to conversations about “forfeiture-for-competition” clauses — a similar, but distinct type of agreement.