Upstart Holdings in San Mateo, Calif., will apply to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for a national bank charter.
The fintech also plans to become a bank holding company and form Upstart Bank. The charter will let Upstart reduce operational, regulatory, and financial costs and complexity for itself and its third-party capital sources.
Annie Delgado, Upstart’s chief risk officer, would serve as the bank’s CEO.
“The time is right to launch the first bank built from the ground up on AI,” Paul Gu, Upstart’s chief technology officer and incoming CEO, said in a press release. “Applying for a bank charter is the natural evolution of our business as we’ve grown in size, scale, and product offerings.”