OpenReserve, founded by alumni of the fintech MoneyLion, has received conditional approval for a national banking license from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the company said Thursday. The proposed bank submitted its OCC application in April, but with the conditional go-ahead, executives are taking OpenReserve “out of stealth,” co-founders Dee Choubey and Rick Correia each wrote in LinkedIn posts. Choubey described the aim as becoming “the de facto unified ledger for American companies,” with continuous credit access, capital access, and real-time connectivity to capital markets.
The venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz led a $25 million capital raise for OpenReserve. The proposed bank plans to offer deposit and lending products, including tokenized capabilities, as well as payments and treasury services, digital asset services, and foreign correspondent banking. OpenReserve also plans to create a stablecoin subsidiary to handle issuing, custody, conversion, and payment of digital assets, and will let users pay remittances using digital assets, according to the OCC’s conditional approval letter. The C-suite includes David Schwed, a former Robinhood chief information security officer and former global head of digital assets technology at BNY, as chief technology officer, and Jame Sloan, a 21-year OCC veteran now on the board of Anchorage Digital, as chief risk officer.
The conditional approval carries specific requirements: OpenReserve must maintain a tier 1 leverage ratio of 12% or more throughout its first three years of operation, submit a complete description of its information systems and operations architecture, and perform an independent security review and test of its electronic banking platform. Choubey said the letter means “America’s main banking regulator has reviewed our plan and said: proceed,” while noting that de novo national charters are rare. The involvement of former MoneyLion leadership and experienced risk and technology executives suggests a deliberate effort to satisfy regulatory expectations for a technology-forward bank.
What remains unknown is the timeline for full approval. OpenReserve has yet to receive approval from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve, and the OCC’s conditions must still be met. The source does not specify when operations might begin, how the stablecoin subsidiary will be structured, or what additional capital or partnerships may be required before the bank can open.