Lorum has applied for a national trust charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, according to documents shared with Banking Dive on Tuesday by the multicurrency clearing and cash management platform.
A national trust charter would give Lorum the chance to apply for a Federal Reserve account, releasing it from reliance on a partner bank and enabling it to launch more fiduciary services, founder George Davis told Banking Dive.
“What we're building is a bank for other banks,” Davis said. “We’re basically building a new-age BNY.”
Lorum operates out of Dubai as a specialist correspondent institution providing clearing, custody and cash management for regulated financial firms such as payroll operators and payment services providers. But the company is moving to New York City, to the proposed headquarters of Lorum National Trust Bank, according to the filing.
Lorum’s customers are largely European financial institutions and small- to mid-market U.S. banks and payments companies. But Lorum helps customers move U.S. dollars all over the world, he said.
“Dollars really are the currency of global trades,” Davis said. “We do a lot of import/export business, a lot of trade finance business. ... Dollars, even in Europe, can be extremely difficult to access.”
With a trust charter, Lorum plans to launch fixed-income products, including giving customers the ability to earn interest on idle balances held on the platform for foreign exchange, Davis said.
Davis co-founded stablecoin infrastructure startup BVNK in the U.K. in 2021, and grew its footprint across the U.S., Europe and Africa. Mastercard has agreed to acquire BVNK for $1.8 billion, betting that BVNK will eventually enable faster settlement times even for card rails.
Lorum’s application is part of a wave of national trust charter applications being submitted to the OCC. Bank trade groups of late have spoken out against the trend, but Davis believes his firm operates squarely within a trust bank’s parameters.
“If you look at what the activity of a trust bank actually is, it's holding balances on behalf of others that you look after and you safeguard,” he said. “That really is our core business – we are meant to be a neutral provider that looks after the money we hold on the platform, and facilitates the transfers and the investment of that money directed by the end customer. Our core activity is a trust activity.”
The OCC’s website had not been updated to include Lorum’s application, as of midday Tuesday.
