Israeli payments and loyalty platform Nayax and infrastructure provider for mark-to-market credit and structured finance Zaria Systems are the latest fintechs to file applications in the US to charter banks.
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Nayax has filed an application with the Connecticut Department of Banking to establish Nayax America Bank.
The charter would enable Nayax customers across the US to access a range of embedded financial services, including corporate cards, controlled-spend programmes, and working-capital solutions such as merchant cash advances and equipment financing via the Nayax platform.
These services would be offered in addition to the payment facilitation services that Nayax customers already receive but the bank would not accept deposits, engage in consumer products, or operate physical branch locations.
“Payments are how we built our relationship with customers. This represents a larger opportunity to become the financial platform our customers rely on to run their businesses,” says Aaron Greenberg, chief strategy officer, Nayax.
Last month, Nayax revealed that it had suffered a data breach but that it was refusing to pay a ransom for data stolen by the hackers.
Separately, Zaria has filed an application with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to charter Zaria National Trust Bank.
The bank, says Zaria, would become the first federally regulated corporate trustee built specifically for modern structured finance, offering a single regulated counterparty across four functions that today are scattered across various providers.
Those functions would be: corporate trustee services for asset-backed securities, collateralised loan obligations, and other structured finance transactions; agency services for syndicated and bilateral credit facilities; combined loan servicing and collateral management for banks and other direct lenders; and backup servicing and backup collateral management with same-day transition readiness in the event a primary servicer defaults.
Emily Barron, CEO, Zaria, says: “Lenders, asset managers, and their investors increasingly need a fiduciary counterparty that can monitor collateral in real time, not just at the end of a reporting period.
“Filing for a national trust bank charter allows us to build that infrastructure inside a federally regulated institution, so lenders and their counterparties get the same regulatory clarity and credibility they already expect from a bank, applied to markets that have never had it before.”