Corporate spend management fintech Ramp applied for a national trust bank charter Friday with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the company wrote Monday in posts on X and LinkedIn.
The company offered few details, saying it would offer fiduciary investment management and digital-asset custody – but would not take deposits or make commercial loans – if the charter is approved.
“The proposed trust bank would bring these services under a consistent federal regulatory framework, helping us build great products alongside our banking partners to further our mission to save businesses time and money,” the company wrote in its posts.
There has been a competitive rush for charters this year. Block, Avant and Modern Treasury are among the fintechs that have sought OCC charters, all applying over the past two months. They're eager to have access to the Federal Reserve's account and payment rail services.
Ramp’s application was filed just a day after the company announced it had raised $1.85 billion in a financing round led by Dragoneer Investment Group. Ramp is now valued at $60 billion.
The application also comes just weeks after the Independent Community Bankers of America sued the OCC, arguing the recent spike in national trust bank charter applications – and approvals – are creating “a gaping hole in financial regulation.”
The OCC’s current posture “perversely allow[s] entities engaged in highly risky cryptocurrency and digital assets activities to enter the banking system under lightly regulated national charters rather than the more rigorously regulated traditional bank charter,” which puts community banks at a “severe competitive disadvantage,” the trade group asserted in its lawsuit, filed Oct. 2.
The OCC has approved, or conditionally approved, 21 national trust bank charters since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the ICBA noted. Thirteen of those have come from crypto companies, the trade group said.
“There is no statutory basis for the OCC’s position that it can charter crypto trust banks that are neither depository nor fiduciary,” the ICBA argued in its lawsuit.
Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould, however, has defended his agency’s conditional charter approvals, saying “we don’t have a zero risk tolerance anymore.”
“That’s not what the statute says. The statute talks about a reasonable chance of success. That’s how we evaluate applications,” Gould said at an event in May.
Ji Hun Kim, CEO of trade association Crypto Council for Innovation, said ICBA’s lawsuit “is a clear attempt to resist national trust charters, payments innovation, and competition in financial services.”
“Restricting banking to legacy business models will not stop demand for financial innovation,” Kim said this month.
Ramp, for its part, has solidified its leadership this year, naming co-founder Karim Atiyeh, previously the company’s chief technology officer, as co-CEO, alongside co-founder Eric Glyman.
Additionally, Ramp tapped Rahul Sengottuvelu, previously its head of applied artificial intelligence, to become its next tech chief. Before joining Ramp, Sengottuvelu served as CTO at Cohere, which Ramp bought in 2023.