Ferdinand Dabitz holds up a $100 bill. “This is the best product in the history of the world but distribution is broken.” The 25-year-old speaks with the conviction of someone who has studied money since childhood. His favorite toy was a safe. His parents called him Scrooge McDuck. Now he runs Augustus. And the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency just handed his company a full national bank charter.
The conditional approval, announced today, marks only the eighth such full-service charter the OCC has issued since 2010. Fortune first reported the news alongside details of Augustus’s $40 million funding round. Unlike the narrower trust charters granted to firms such as Ripple or Paxos, this one opens the door to deposits, lending, payments and full banking powers. It arrives as stablecoins gain traction and Washington shows fresh willingness to update the plumbing of dollar dominance.
Augustus, formerly known as Ivy, was founded in 2022. It already holds European banking licenses and clears cross-border euro transactions for institutions including crypto exchange Kraken. Last year the company posted 10x growth while processing billions in volume. Its backers include Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Creandum, and founders of Ramp, Deel and Circle. The new U.S. charter lets it add dollar clearing to that mix.
Traditional correspondent banking still relies on layers of human approvals. Overseas banks wait for sign-offs from intermediary institutions with Federal Reserve access. Deals happen only during business hours. Time zones clash. Errors creep in. Settlement can take two days. Correspondent banks close 115 days a year. Dabitz calls the setup antiquated. “We think that’s a broken process,” he told Fortune, “and we think there’s an opportunity to rebuild it around stablecoins and technology, including, of course, AI.”
The AI and Stablecoin Core
Augustus designs its system from first principles. Legacy bank cores handle stateless, short-lived, human-initiated requests. Augustus builds for durable, non-deterministic, agent-initiated workflows. The result is a core that operates at the speed of compute. Real-time settlement. 24/7 availability. Programmable money. AI agents interact directly with the bank instead of routing through clerks.
Once operational, Augustus Bank, N.A. will target global financial institutions that need instant, always-on clearing of major Western currencies. It plans a wholly owned subsidiary, Juno Moneta LLC, to issue, custody, convert and pay out U.S. dollar-denominated reserve-backed stablecoins under the GENIUS Act. The bank itself will offer deposits, loans, payments, treasury services, BIN sponsorship and crypto products. No public branches. Everything runs through an online platform. Main offices sit in Dallas and New York.
The OCC application, filed in December 2025 and detailed in a public PDF, describes a de novo full-service national bank built around digital assets and next-generation technology. It will serve digital-asset companies, AI firms, high-net-worth individuals, technology companies and international institutions. Virtual currency can back certain loans. The bank projects it will remain well-capitalized. It intends to elect the community bank leverage ratio framework.
Greg Quarles, Augustus president, spent 18 years at the OCC as a commissioned examiner and assistant deputy comptroller. He later ran Green Dot Bank and other institutions. “My main insight from 30 years in banking is that it is incredibly hard to rethink banking from the inside,” Quarles said in the company’s press release. “To re-design banking from first principles, you have to build from scratch. This is why I’m proud to be part of Augustus.” The OCC, he added, has recognized that much has changed since the financial crisis slowed new bank creation.
But the charter remains conditional. Final approval depends on meeting pre-opening requirements, including FDIC deposit insurance and Federal Reserve membership. Augustus Holding Inc. will become a bank holding company. The application lists experienced executives: Joe Schenone as CFO with JPMorgan and MUFG background, Andy Riggs as chief credit officer from Brex, Kyle Steed as chief risk officer and former regulator. Board member Bruce Wallace brings Brex and Revolut experience.
Dabitz himself received a Thiel Fellowship, dropping out of college to pursue entrepreneurship. At 25 he stands to become the youngest CEO of a federally chartered bank in more than a century. His personal story, combined with the veteran team, appears to have reassured regulators. The OCC has grown more comfortable with digital-asset charters in recent years. It conditionally approved applications from BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paxos and others in late 2025. The GENIUS Act, passed in 2025, created a clearer federal path for stablecoin issuance and related activities.
Yet not everyone welcomes the trend. Critics question whether the OCC has stretched its authority. Some community groups opposed similar applications from crypto-linked firms, citing risks around consumer protection, money laundering and separation of banking and commerce. Recent proposals from the OCC outline detailed rules for permitted payment stablecoin issuers, including capital, reserve and supervisory requirements. The agency positions itself as the primary federal supervisor in this space.
Augustus frames its mission in geopolitical terms. Dollars and euros invoice 90% of global trade. That dominance serves as an instrument of Western soft power. But legacy clearing friction threatens it. China’s CIPS system connects 4,800 banks. A Russia-backed BRICS Pay network plans to launch this year, bypassing SWIFT and the dollar. “Legacy banks are made of paper, Augustus is made of code,” Dabitz said in the May 11 PR Newswire release. “It’s obvious we need to upgrade clearing to the AI era.”
The company positions itself as the composable global money layer for agentic economies. In the future, it argues, AI agents built from code will need banks built from code. Fintechs long innovated only on the front end. Core banking and money movement stayed with century-old institutions. Augustus claims to break that pattern. James Fitzgerald of Valar Ventures put it sharply: “Legacy banks move simple money, Augustus moves smart money.”
Recent market moves reinforce the momentum. Kraken’s parent company Payward filed for its own OCC national trust charter days ago to expand regulated digital-asset custody. Other fintechs and stablecoin players continue to line up for federal licenses. The intersection of artificial intelligence, programmable money and updated regulation has created a narrow window. Augustus seized it.
Success is hardly guaranteed. Building a bank from scratch brings operational, compliance and credit risks. The three-year de novo period demands close supervision. Stablecoin issuance requires strict reserve management and redemption capabilities. Competition from incumbents and other charter holders will intensify. Political support for crypto-friendly rules could shift.
Still, the conditional charter signals regulator confidence in the model. Augustus already proves demand in Europe. Its technology runs live. Customers of scale stand ready. And the young founder, backed by seasoned operators and marquee investors, now holds the rarest of U.S. banking approvals. The dollar’s distribution problem may have found its latest challenger. Whether Augustus can scale that challenge into lasting infrastructure will unfold in the months ahead.
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