Shares of Wise fell about 10% on Friday after the US Comptroller of the Currency denied the money transfer firm’s application for a national trust bank charter, a license that would tie it directly into the Federal Reserve’s payment systems.
London-headquartered fintech Listed on Nasdaq He had spent more than a year chasing approval in May.
The rejection closes for now the most ambitious part of Wise’s American strategy. A national trust charter would allow it to settle dollar payments directly with the Fed instead of routing them through partner banks, such as infrastructure awards won by competitors. Klarna They also followed in the United States.
Wise filed with the OCC in June 2025 to form Wise National Trust, a non-depository bank based in Austin, Texas.
plan, as determined by the companywas to connect the charter with a main account at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and clear US dollars directly, including real-time rails such as FedNow.
Such a combination is rare. An OCC statute qualifies only one firm to apply for a Fed account, and the central bank’s most rigorous scrutiny of uninsured trust banks, a process that may have worked well for the past two years, with few applicants surviving.
The densest pool of applicants waited an average of about 823 days for a decision, and only one crypto-related firm has cleared the bar so far.
A charter and principal account held together could do more than speed up the settlement. Rather than relying on third-party banks, Wise could protect its own dollar assets and shed some of the state money transmitter licenses that fintechs operating domestically must hold over time.
The regulator, however, did not publish a detailed rationale Law 360 This was reported by the OCC noted compliance gaps.
In itself statementWise pointed to “historical problems” with the original application and the changing background, the Fed’s “Suspension of account access for a generally uninsured trust bank.” The approach it took, the company said, was “unhelpful”.
Wise also had a multi-state consent order in effect from July 2025, an executive order on compliance deficiencies that overshadowed the bidding.
The company said it continues to work with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and the National Bank of Belgium on risk and compliance systems.
The downside is narrower than the implied stock move. Wise emphasized that its day-to-day operations are seamless, operating under remittance licenses in 48 states and four territories in the United States, and is part of a portfolio of more than 80 licenses worldwide.
Instead of abandoning the effort, the company plans to try again under different rules. According to Reuters, it intends to file a new application for a national trust statute under the GENIUS Act, a framework created by the recent US law governing stablecoins and other digital assets.
The US remains central to Wise’s growth story. Chairman David Wells called it “The biggest market opportunity for our products in the world today” and the country accounts for nearly half of the group’s cross-border volume, which will reach $243 billion in fiscal 2026, up 31% from the previous year.
Direct Fed access would align Wise with its existing relationships in the UK, EU, Singapore and Australia, cutting out intermediary banks and the costs that come with them. This is the square where the OCC has now stopped.
Wise is far from the only European fintech to adopt a US charter as a gateway to scaling, and licenses have become coveted milestones on both sides of the Atlantic.
Revolution It took years to secure the UK’s own banking licence, a reminder that even at home approvals rarely come quickly.
For a company built on cutting middlemen out of cross-border transfers, it’s an awkward outcome to keep pushing its dollars through other people’s banks.
Not every fintech finds America welcoming: Monzo walked away from the market last year. The sage, in turn, stays and applies again.
