The OCC intends to design standards that will allow fintech companies to be chartered as special-purpose national banks, Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry, said Friday.
Speaking at Georgetown University Law Center, Curry said that chartered companies would be required to meet the same standards as national banks must meet.
The OCC is soliciting comment on exactly what the standards should entail and set a deadline of Jan. 15 for submissions. The OCC also released a white paper detailing why the agency believes the standards are necessary.
“If we decide to grant a national charter to a particular fintech company, that institution will be held to the same high standards of safety and soundness, fair access, and fair treatment of customers that all federally chartered institutions must meet,” the agency said in the white paper.
In his speech, Curry emphasized the desire among young people to conduct their business on line.
“More than 85 million young adults in America are entering the financial world with the majority of their financial lives still ahead,” he said. “They want technologies and services that provide better, faster, more accessible products and services, and they are willing to switch providers or use multiple providers to get what they want.”
He said that chartering companies that are finding new ways of filling those consumers’ needs is another step toward providing responsible innovation for those consumers.
He said that companies that provide banking products should be permitted to become national banks if they wish to do so.
In the white paper, the OCC said that to be chartered a fintech firm would be required to have a governance structure commensurate with the risk and complexity of its services.
And it is expected to have a culture of compliance that emphasizes the need to operate within federal regulations.
Several consumer groups, including the National Consumer Law Center immediately said they opposed the plan. The groups said that a national charter would insulate the fintech companies from supervision by state authorities and would make it difficult for state attorneys general to act against them.
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