The federal bank charter drought that defined the past decade and a half is measurably over, according to the regulator’s own numbers. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said on August 11, 2026 that it has received 40 applications for new national bank charters, including national trust banks, in the past 18 months alone. For comparison, the OCC received only 48 such applications across the entire 14 year span from 2011 through 2024, with some years drawing zero applications at all.
Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould framed the reversal directly. For more than a decade, he said, regulators had signaled that those seeking a federal bank charter and federal deposit insurance need not apply. The OCC credits a streamlined application process under its de novo chartering initiative, paired with the FDIC’s own reform of how it reviews deposit insurance applications, for unlocking demand that had been suppressed rather than absent. The agency also says a full service national bank has already opened under final approval, the first in five years.
The original insight: this is not only about the volume of banking startups. The OCC explicitly says it is welcoming applicants engaged in legally permissible activities, including those involving digital assets and novel technologies, which puts fintechs pursuing a national charter, not just a state trust or industrial bank workaround, back on a viable federal path. Upstart’s AI native underwriting charter push and Increase’s move to buy a community bank rather than keep renting one both anticipated this loosening; the OCC’s own data now confirms the door is open wider than either company assumed when it filed.
Source: OCC
