Topic
Fintech and crypto firms' pursuit of bank charters (national, state, trust or industrial loan company) to offer banking directly instead of via partner banks.
Wise says it has remediated every point of its US AML consent order, after the OCC denied its trust bank charter in July. The $4.2 million order equals 0.6% of a quarter's net revenue; the bigger cost is a charter with no restart date.
Reality
Upgrade applied on Oct. 12 to Nevada and the FDIC to form Upgrade Bank, an industrial loan company, after extending more than $53 billion of credit. It did not say how much lending would move onto the new bank. That share decides whether the charter adds funding or displaces a partner.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
The FDIC's annual deposit report puts SoFi Bank 47th in the country at $46.8 billion, double its total two years earlier. Chime is holding its own balance sheet under $10 billion to keep uncapped interchange.
Reality
Chime's proposed purchase of Stride Bank cost its sponsor bank $13.55 a share, even though the Chime contract runs to mid-2028. Valley Bank and Hatch Bank are already sponsoring a different kind of client.
Reality
An American Banker column urges compliance chiefs to swap constraint for strategy. With budgets flat, the real decision is which controls a bank agrees to run thinner.
Reality
Zerohash's national trust application came back without a decision, the only such return in the agency's recent record. Applicants should now budget for outcome number three.
Reality