Mercury received conditional approval for a national bank license from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the fintech announced Monday.
Mercury announced it had applied for a charter on Dec. 19, at the time appointing Jon Auxier — an alum of SoFi, Green Dot and Goldman Sachs — as CEO of the proposed Mercury Bank.
“The work now is earning trust by building the bank our customers deserve,” Auxier said in Monday’s press release. “That means the operational infrastructure and risk management discipline to match the standard Mercury’s product has already set.”
Auxier helped lead the implementation of SoFi’s national bank charter, which it filed for in 2020 and conditionally received in 2022.
For Mercury Bank, conditional approval makes way for the bank’s organization phase, during which it will satisfy remaining requirements laid out by the OCC and obtain final approvals from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve.
“We applied for this charter because the best founders in the country deserve a bank that was built for them,” said Mercury CEO and co-founder Immad Akhund in a prepared statement. “Our customers have been asking for Zelle, for expanded lending, for payment infrastructure we actually control. We couldn’t give them those things without a bank charter. Those gaps have always bothered me. This is how we start closing them.”
Mercury provides digital banking services, credit cards and software tools to more than 300,000 clients, most of whom are startups and SMBs. Its bank partners include Choice Financial Group and Column National Association, as well as card issuer Patriot Bank.
Privately-held Mercury said it generates about $650 million in annualized revenue. Mercury Bank will offer an expanded suite of lending products for businesses and individuals, the firm said, and will be headquartered in Utah.
“Few fintechs have reached the level of financial strength and operational discipline to pursue a charter at this scale,” Auxier said when Mercury submitted its application in December. “Mercury is profitable and has built a strong balance sheet with a scaled and successful business. Becoming a bank will build upon our strong foundation and let us innovate with more precision and accountability.”
Since Comptroller Jonathan Gould took the helm of the agency last year, a number of charter applications have been filed with the OCC, with several gaining conditional approval and two (Erebor Bank and UBS) gaining final approval.
The FDIC, under Chair Travis Hill, has also approved charters, specifically industrial loan company charters for Ford, GM and Edward Jones.
Hill and Gould have both backed an increase in de novo chartering. The uptick in charter applications “signals healthy competition, a commitment to innovation, and should be encouraging to all of us,” Gould said in December.
