SAN FRANCISCO–Buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider Affirm has become the latest fintech to file to create a bank subsidiary called Affirm Bank, while crypto firm Ripple said it has been granted approval by the OCC for a national bank trust charter.
Affirm submitted applications to the Nevada Financial Institutions Division and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to establish a Nevada-chartered industrial loan company.
According to the company, the proposed bank subsidiary would enable Affirm to continue scaling while having an FDIC-insured institution. Would allow it to expand access to its financial products, complement its current business and bank partnership models and spur development of new products and services.
To Have Independent Governance
If approved, Affirm Bank would operate as a wholly owned, Nevada-chartered, FDIC-insured bank subsidiary of Affirm, with its own independent governance and internal controls, per the release, the company said.
“A banking subsidiary would strengthen and diversify Affirm’s platform, and help us bring honest financial products to more people,” Affirm founder and CEO Max Levchin said in a statement. “This is about expanding what we can do for consumers and merchants, and building for the long term.”
Company Performance
Affirm reported in November 2025 that during the most recent quarter, durable demand for transparent credit and 0% installment helped increase the company’s gross merchandise volume by 42% to $10.8 billion and its revenue by 34% to $933 million.
Ripple Approved for Charter
Meanwhile, crypto firm Ripple has been granted conditional approval in its bid to secure a national trust bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
Ripple, together with four other crypto-related businesses, Circle, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos, have all provisional agreement from the OCC despite opposition from many Main Street banks.
The OCC tentatively approved Ripple, creator of the RLUSD dollar-backed stablecoin and XRP payment token, and Circle, issuer of the USDC stablecoin, to establish national trust banks. Elsewhere, the OCC also gave preliminary approval to BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos, to convert from state-regulated trust companies to nationally regulated trust banks.
‘Unanswered Questions’
As the CU Daily has reported, the banking industry trade groups have been arguing that granting charters is a backdoor into the banking sector that poses a systemic risk.
“[The] decision by the OCC to grant conditionally five national trust charters leaves substantial unanswered questions,” said Greg Baer, president and CEO of the Bank Policy Institute, in a prepared statement. “Chiefly, whether the requirements the OCC has outlined for the applicants are appropriately tailored to the activities and risks in which the trust will engage.”
