OCC Gives OpenReserve Preliminary Conditional Approval for Bank Bid

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) gave OpenReserve preliminary conditional approval to pursue a national bank charter, advancing a proposed blockchain settlement bank while leaving it unable to open for now.

The decision allows the charter process to continue, but does not authorize the proposed bank to begin operations. OpenReserve must satisfy preopening requirements and receive final approval before it can open.

OpenReserve announced a $25 million seed round led by a16z crypto on Sept. 3, the day after the OCC decision. Dee Choubey, OpenReserve’s co-founder and CEO, said, “We chose the national bank path deliberately.”

The charter application was filed April 13, 2026. The OCC’s capital terms require at least $210 million in initial paid-in capital after organizational and preopening expenses. The bank also must maintain a Tier 1 leverage ratio of at least 12% during its first three years of operation.

OpenReserve proposes a full-service national bank headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, with no branches. Its planned offerings include deposits and lending, payments and treasury services, digital asset services, foreign correspondent banking and banking-as-a-service. The plan also includes tokenized capabilities across deposit products.

The proposal calls for a subsidiary to issue, custody and convert U.S. dollar-denominated, reserve-backed stablecoins and handle payments involving them. No application for the subsidiary had been filed as of Sept. 2.

New-bank charter activity has picked up. Through Aug. 5, 2026, the de novo tally stood at 22 applications and 14 approvals, compared with 18 applications and seven approvals for all of 2025. A de novo bank is a newly chartered bank, and the 2026 figures cover only part of the year.

The preliminary approval will expire if OpenReserve does not raise the required capital within 12 months of Sept. 2 or open within 18 months of that date.