OCC Denies Wise's US National Trust Bank Charter

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency denied Wise's application for a US national trust bank charter, the payments company said Friday, a rare public rejection from a regulator that has spent the past eight months approving trust charters for crypto and fintech firms.

Wise shares fell as much as 10% on Nasdaq, where the company moved its primary listing from London in May.

The OCC's decision letter said the application presented "significant supervisory and compliance concerns" and that Wise's proposed management and board had "demonstrated a persistent inability" to manage money-laundering and terrorist-financing risks, according to Law360, which reviewed the letter.

Wise said it plans to submit a new application "under a GENIUS Act framework, as we continue to maintain a positive relationship with the agency," and that the denial does not affect its US operations, which run on money transmitter licenses across 48 states and four territories.

Application Overtaken by Events

Wise filed in June 2025 to charter Wise National Trust, N.A., a nondepository trust bank that would have given the company direct access to Federal Reserve payment rails instead of routing through partner banks. A month later, US state regulators hit Wise with a multi-state consent order over compliance failures — an action the company acknowledged in Friday's statement.

The application also depended on a Fed master account. "With the Federal Reserve generally pausing account access for an uninsured trust bank, the approach in our application became non-viable," Wise said.

Bank lobby groups had pushed for the rejection: the Bank Policy Institute and the Independent Community Bankers of America both filed letters opposing the charter in October. Belgian authorities opened a money-laundering investigation into Wise in June over roughly $500 million in suspicious transactions, according to Finance Magnates.

An Outlier in the Charter Wave

The denial cuts against the OCC's recent record under Comptroller Jonathan Gould. The agency granted conditional approvals to Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, and Fidelity Digital Assets in December, followed by Coinbase in April. Circle received final approval to open its national trust bank on July 10.

More than a dozen applications remain pending at the OCC, including from Revolut, World Liberty Financial's trust company, and Kraken parent Payward. Wise no longer appears on the pending list.

Wise said its infrastructure is "well positioned to play an important interoperability role" as stablecoins gain ground alongside existing payment rails. The company reported more than $240 billion in cross-border volume and about 19 million customers in fiscal 2026.