Fintech · Industry brief

Stablecoin infrastructure provider Bastion received preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on September 18 to operate as Bastion Platforms National Trust Company, a federally supervised national trust bank focused on custody, payments and stablecoin infrastructure. The OCC approval allows Bastion to provide stablecoin custody and wallets, payment infrastructure, white-label issuance, and fiduciary custody for digital assets including USDC, while explicitly excluding traditional deposit-taking and lending activities. This move follows Bastion's February 2025 New York limited-purpose trust charter and reflects a broader trend where crypto custody and stablecoin companies—including Ripple, Circle, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos—are seeking OCC national trust charters to operate under unified federal supervision rather than fragmented state regimes. The shift has gained momentum following the GENIUS Act, which established a national payment stablecoin framework and raised regulatory requirements, making federal charters commercially valuable for infrastructure providers serving institutional clients and large enterprises building branded stablecoin products.

SoFi obtained a federal bank charter in January 2022 through the acquisition of Golden Pacific Bank, becoming one of the first fintechs to secure this approval. This charter transformed the company's ability to take deposits and fund loans internally, growing deposits from $1.2 billion in Q1 2022 to $45.5 billion by Q2 2026, while expanding membership from 3.9 million to 15.8 million members. Upstart received conditional approval for a national bank charter in July 2026 with final approval expected in early 2027, while Affirm applied for an industrial loan bank charter in January 2026 and remains awaiting approval. Federal regulators have eased restrictions on fintech bank charter applications over the past couple of years following initial reluctance, resulting in a surge of fintech applicants seeking charters that would allow them to reduce funding costs and compete more effectively against traditional banks.