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The Charter Rush
Many fintech companies are anti-bank until they become one. As Bank Director’s Executive Editor Jackie Stewart wrote recently, there’s been a mad rush of neobanks and crypto companies seeking national bank charters, many of them trying to get their applications submitted and approved while President Donald Trump is in office.
According to McKinsey & Co., fintechs filed 21 applications with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in 2025, up from one in 2024 and five in 2023. About 38% of the 2025 applications have been accepted, and approval times were about 40% faster than usual.
Some of the neobanks are well established brands overseas. London-based Revolut had 69 million customers and was the 11th most valuable bank in Europe as of December 2025, according to McKinsey’s Global Banking Annual Review 2026. Meanwhile, Sao Paulo, Brazil-based Nubank was the most valuable bank in Latin America, according to McKinsey. Cofounder Cristina Junqueira wrote on Instagram this week about the challenges of entering the U.S. bank market, despite having 135 million customers in Latin America. “Behind the barriers are millions of customers still paying too much and navigating too much friction, and that gap is exactly where opportunity lives,” she wrote.
Despite the rhetoric, these firms recognize there are benefits from becoming part of the national regulatory apparatus, bypassing state-level licensing requirements at a time when some states are increasing protections for consumers, says Max Bonici, a partner at the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine. They also benefit from federal preemption, so they’re not subject to state interest rate caps. Many of the fintechs are applying for trust charters, meaning they won’t be able to lend and generally, they won’t have the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s protections for deposits. But they can hold assets such as cryptocurrencies in trust, and they can make payments nationwide. “It’s good for a level of geographic expansion and flexibility,” Bonici says.
It’s doubtful most of these companies will be successful as U.S. banks. History suggests they won’t be. “It’s a wonderful time, but you are embarking on a serious task,” Bonici says.
• Naomi Snyder, editor-in-chief for Bank Director
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