Bloomberg News
WASHINGTON — The Amsterdam-based neobank “bunq” has withdrawn its application for a U.S. banking license after, it says, issues emerged between its Dutch regulator and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The neobank spent 301 days in the OCC’s queue after applying for a national bank charter in April. In a statement emailed to American Banker, a bunq spokesperson said that the withdrawal was “merely procedural.”
“During the course of the application process, some difference of views has emerged between bunq’s home-country regulator … and the FDIC and OCC in the U.S.,” the spokesperson said.
Bunq plans to “speedily” reapply and said that it is “fully committed to resolving all the differences between [De Nederlandsche Bank’s] and the FDIC’s and OCC’s supervisory expectations,” the spokesperson said.
The OCC and the FDIC declined to comment on the application.
A spokesperson for De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch national banking regulator, said in an emailed statement that it’s “not allowed to comment on individual institutions.
“In general we can say that it is good supervisory practice to exchange information between supervisors when an institution from one country (the home country) is or will be active in another country (the host country),” said the spokesperson for the Dutch regulator. “For such purposes we also have [a memorandum of understanding] with the OCC.”
It’s a difficult time for any prospective bank, let alone a European entrant, to get a U.S. banking license, according to several experts in the field. The U.K. challenger Monzo
“I can only comment generally, in that, it remains a challenging regulatory environment for de novo banks,” said Matthew Bornfreund, an attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP who advises banks and who’s listed as the spokesperson for the bunq application with the OCC.
There have been no fintech approvals by the OCC since acting Comptroller Michael Hsu took over, said Michele Alt, a former OCC attorney and co-founder of the Klaros Group.
“And that’s getting to be some time now,” she said.
She said that U.S. bank regulators are, in general, more reluctant to approve startup banks.
“I think it is evident that the banking regulators are proceeding with extreme caution in allowing the bank formation in the U.S. of any type other than maybe just a plain vanilla community bank,” she said.
Executives at bunq have been optimistic about their chances in obtaining a charter, despite obstacles faced by other European banks in trying to break into the U.S. market.
Just last summer, the neobank’s CEO Ali Niknam
But given that bunq needs to address differences in supervisory expectations among the Dutch and American regulators, Alt said that it could be facing a long road.
“That’s not a merely procedural matter,” she said. “That is a substantive obstacle to approval.”
