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Revolut US bank charter plans just cleared a major hurdle: conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to become a national bank in America, a step two of its European rivals failed to clear just weeks earlier. The proposed entity, Revolut Bank US, N.A., still needs sign-off from the FDIC on deposit insurance and from the Federal Reserve on a master account before it can actually open its doors. Revolut is targeting a 2027 launch as a standalone, federally regulated bank offering deposits, personal and business loans, credit cards, and access to stablecoins and cryptocurrencies.
A Second Attempt, Backed by $500 Million
This Revolut US bank charter bid is the company’s second run at a US charter. The first, filed with California regulators in 2021, was withdrawn in 2023 after concerns about the company’s internal controls. This time it went straight to the OCC for a national charter rather than a state one, dropped an earlier plan to simply buy an existing US bank, and backed the application with a $500 million commitment to the US market and a new US CEO, Cetin Duransoy. Founder and CEO Nik Storonsky called the conditional approval “an important first step towards establishing the proposed Revolut Bank US,” saying it gives the company “the foundation to build in the world’s largest financial market.”
Two Rejections, One Approval
The timing is what makes this notable. The OCC denied Wise’s application for a national trust bank charter in July, citing organizers who didn’t show sufficient familiarity with federal banking law and unresolved anti-money-laundering questions. Weeks later it turned down Bunq’s national bank bid too, saying the Dutch challenger hadn’t clearly explained how it would be capitalized in the US and doubting its management team’s experience running unsecured credit products. Two European neobanks tried the same regulator in the same stretch of 2026 and got rejected. The Revolut US bank charter bid didn’t.
That contrast matters more than the charter itself, and it echoes a pattern Fintechbits has tracked in fintech funding all year: capital and regulatory goodwill increasingly go to companies that already have scale.
Revolut arrives with a $75 billion valuation, over 70 million customers globally, $6 billion in 2025 revenue and $1.7 billion in net profit, plus a UK banking license it picked up back in March. It has scale and a profitable balance sheet that Wise’s trust-bank plan and Bunq’s much smaller US ambitions didn’t need to match. Conditional approval isn’t a rubber stamp, and the OCC’s own language makes clear it comes with pre-opening conditions that still have to be met. But it does suggest that size and an already-proven banking business, not just a charter application, is what got Revolut further than its rivals.
Revolut is also not applying in a vacuum. A wider group of fintechs and stablecoin issuers have been lining up at the OCC’s door throughout 2026, and the agency has said publicly it wants to work with digital-asset and payments firms willing to meet bank-grade standards. Revolut clearing the bar while Wise and Bunq didn’t suggests the OCC is being selective about who gets through, not simply closing the door on fintech charters altogether.
What’s Left Before the Revolut US Bank Charter Opens
FDIC deposit insurance and a Fed master account are the two approvals that have sunk fintech bank ambitions before, and Revolut’s stablecoin and crypto plans will draw their own scrutiny once examiners get into the details, especially since the OCC has spent much of 2026 fielding charter requests from stablecoin issuers that also want to become banks.
Revolut is one of a growing line of applicants the agency says it wants to work with, provided they can show they are actually ready to operate like a bank rather than just look like one on paper. Watch for whether the Revolut US bank charter clears those last steps in time for the company to hit its 2027 launch target or joins the long list of European challengers whose US bank plans stalled at the next stage.
