What the OCC approved
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted preliminary conditional approval for Revolut Bank US, N.A., a proposed full-service insured national bank headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. The decision is a regulatory milestone, but it is not final authorization to open. [1]
The proposed bank would serve US retail and business customers through a proprietary digital application. Planned activities include deposits, credit, payments, financial-management tools, affiliated digital-asset custody and remittances using digital assets including stablecoins. [1]
Opening depends on several separate gates
The bank cannot commence business until it satisfies OCC preopening requirements, obtains Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation deposit insurance, secures relevant Federal Reserve approvals and receives final OCC authorization. Preliminary approval therefore does not mean deposits or lending have begun under the new charter. [1]
The OCC excluded the proposed retail foreign-exchange business from the present approval. That activity would require a later supervisory non-objection before it could begin. [1]
Capital and operational readiness are part of the charter
The decision requires at least $95 million in initial paid-in capital and a tier 1 leverage ratio of at least 10% throughout the first three years. It also imposes information-security, independent-testing, vendor-management, Bank Secrecy Act, capital-planning and preopening-examination requirements. [1]
The case illustrates that a digital-bank charter is an operating-readiness programme as well as a licensing process. finorasjournal reports the decision for information and does not assess the bank as a customer or investment proposition. [1]