{"id":889942,"date":"2026-06-24T17:49:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T17:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/889942\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T17:49:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T17:49:38","slug":"inside-augustus-the-thiel-backed-bank-made-of-code-nearing-a-national-charter-from-dallas-dallas-innovates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/889942\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Augustus: The Thiel-Backed \u2018Bank Made of Code\u2019 Nearing a National Charter From Dallas \u00bb Dallas Innovates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Augustus doesn\u2019t have a bank yet. But it has already cleared one of banking\u2019s toughest hurdles: preliminary approval for a national charter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Thiel-backed fintech is building what it calls the first clearing bank for the AI era\u2014a bank organized around stablecoins, round-the-clock payments, and a future of machine-to-machine transactions. That prospect was enough to pull Greg Quarles out of the top job at another bank last October. As president of Augustus National Bank, the Texas banker and former federal regulator is now leading the company\u2019s launch from Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is incredibly hard to rethink banking from the inside,\u201d Quarles said, noting that the financial crisis had \u201cessentially paused American new bank creation.\u201d Now, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s time to build new banks again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Augustus is using technology to build a bank for \u201chow money actually needs to move,\u201d according to Quarles.<\/p>\n

Augustus National Bank filed its charter application in December and received preliminary, conditional approval from the OCC on May 8\u2014less than five months later. More regulatory steps remain, but if those requirements are met, Quarles said the bank could open as soon as September.<\/p>\n

The veteran and the founder<\/p>\n

Quarles didn\u2019t go looking for the job. It came through a Dallas headhunter he\u2019d known for years, while Quarles was running United Texas Bank with his \u201chead down,\u201d he said in an interview with Dallas Innovates.<\/p>\n

Advisers had told Augustus\u2019 founders that pursuing an OCC charter\u2014\u201cthe hardest thing to do\u201d in banking\u2014would require a strong banker who understood both regulation and innovation, Quarles said.<\/p>\n

He fit that profile. Quarles spent 18 years at the OCC as a commissioned national bank examiner and assistant deputy comptroller. He then ran three banks: H&R Block Bank, which he launched as a de novo himself; Green Dot Bank; and United Texas Bank. At United Texas, which moved large volumes for digital-asset companies, Quarles led a compliance, governance, and risk-management remediation.<\/p>\n

The founder who brought him to Augustus is Ferdinand Dabitz, a 25-year-old German entrepreneur who goes by Ferdi. He is a Thiel Fellow, a program that backs young entrepreneurs with a $250,000 grant to skip or leave college and build new things. The company says Dabitz would be the youngest CEO of a federally chartered U.S. bank in modern history.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ferdinand Dabitz, 25, who goes by Ferdi, would become the youngest CEO of a federally chartered U.S. bank in roughly 140 years, by the company\u2019s count, if Augustus completes the charter process. [Photo and Illustration courtesy of Augustus; composite image DI Studio]<\/p>\n

Quarles said he found a founder who led with the regulated part of the business, not just the technology. Over the years, he\u2019s been approached by fintech CEOs who \u201cunderestimate the regulatory compliance and how you have to operate in a safe and sound manner,\u201d he said. \u201cBut not Ferdi. That\u2019s the thing he led with.\u201d Dabitz, Quarles said, is \u201cthe brightest guy I\u2019ve ever met.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two worked together for eight months, he said, before either learned the other\u2019s age. \u201cI didn\u2019t ask his age,\u201d Quarles said, \u201cbut he didn\u2019t ask my age either.\u201d<\/p>\n

The job requires being willing to \u201cstretch and not do it the way we always have done it, but do it a new way,\u201d he said, while adding, \u201cWith gray hair comes wisdom and risk management.\u201d<\/p>\n

Augustus could have built its U.S. stablecoin and payments business without a bank charter, as many crypto and fintech firms do, Quarles said. It chose the harder, more heavily supervised path of a national bank instead. \u201cBanking is all about trust,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A bank built for machines<\/p>\n

Augustus has a mission, in its own words, \u201cto secure and advance Western currency dominance by upgrading clearing to the AI era.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the plumbing of finance, clearing banks sit between institutions, holding deposits and settling payments. Augustus\u2019 pitch is that much of that system still moves at bank speed, across business hours, holidays, time zones, and multiple correspondent banks. As Dabitz has put it, that adds up to \u201c115 bank holidays a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moving a dollar across borders today, Quarles said, can involve \u201cthree to four banks and business hours in two different time zones.\u201d Augustus intends to run \u201c24\/7, 365 days of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Augustus Bank is being built as a wholesale, business-to-business clearing bank for global institutions, not as a consumer bank. Its customers, Quarles said, are treasury departments, digital asset firms, and other entities that need to move money at scale. <\/p>\n

In Europe, Augustus already serves digital-asset firms such as the crypto exchange Kraken. Quarles said those kinds of institutions \u201cneed access to the U.S. rails.\u201d<\/p>\n

The convergence of digital assets, payments, AI, and traditional banking \u201cisn\u2019t a passing trend\u2014it\u2019s a generational shift in how institutions will operate, compete, and create value in the decades ahead,\u201d according to Quarles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Augustus calls itself \u201cthe clearing bank for the AI era\u201d and builds its branding to suggest code \u2014 its namesake emperor\u2019s coin in dot-matrix, Roman monuments in wireframe. The bank would run without a single physical branch, \u201calways open,\u201d in the company\u2019s words, and \u201cat the speed of compute.\u201d [Screenshot\/Augustus video<\/a>]<\/p>\n

A bank made of code<\/p>\n

\u201cLegacy banks are made of paper, Augustus is made of code<\/a>,\u201d Dabitz said in Banking Dive.<\/p>\n

On CNBC, holding up a $100 bill, he called it \u201cthe best product\u201d in history, citing \u201cquasi infinite global demand for hard currencies, especially the dollar.\u201d Today, Augustus thinks distribution is broken. \u201cWe want to rethink the clearing bank as an AI application,\u201d Dabitz said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoney never was upgraded to the internet era,\u201d he said in a launch video.<\/p>\n

Augustus CFO Joe Schenone sees the next wave of GDP generated by agents executing autonomously, not humans clicking buttons. \u201cAI agents made of code will need a bank made of code.\u201d<\/p>\n

Augustus has also made a geopolitical case for its approach. In its May announcement, the company noted that roughly 90% of global trade is invoiced in dollars or euros and called Western currency dominance \u201can essential instrument of soft power\u201d now under pressure. <\/p>\n

The company pointed to China\u2019s CIPS network, which it said links some 4,800 banks, and to a Russia-backed BRICS Pay system set to launch in 2026 to route cross-border payments around SWIFT and the dollar.<\/p>\n

Stablecoins, fully reserved<\/p>\n

Stablecoins are a pillar of the Augustus model. But \u201cwe\u2019re not a crypto company,\u201d Quarles said. The model, as he described it, would have the bank hold U.S. dollar deposits, issue stablecoins against them, and process those payments continuously, with reserves kept \u201c100% reserved\u201d in line with the GENIUS Act (the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act), a federal law that sets rules for how digital tokens pegged to a fiat currency can be issued and backed.<\/p>\n

The OCC decision says a wholly owned stablecoin subsidiary, identified in the Dallas Business Journal\u2019s reporting as Juno Moneta LLC<\/a>, would handle the \u201cissuance, custody, conversion, and payment of U.S. dollar-denominated reserve-backed stablecoins.\u201d<\/p>\n

The OCC noted in May that an application for the subsidiary hasn\u2019t yet been filed.<\/p>\n

Choosing Dallas as a \u2018forward bet\u2019<\/p>\n

Quarles said the company\u2019s choice of Dallas was a \u201cforward bet.\u201d \u201cThe center of gravity in the U.S. financial services is really shifting south, down to Dallas,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to be the flagship of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The founders had planned to locate the bank somewhere in Texas, Quarles said. He pushed for Dallas.<\/p>\n

Quarles grew up in the Texas Panhandle and has banked around the country. \u201cI\u2019m a Texan, but lived all over the country, but there\u2019s just something about Texas if you want to be successful, be an entrepreneur,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A newly chartered bank, Quarles said, has \u201cgot to have access to talent, and we think that\u2019s really critical for us.\u201d Dallas, he said, has deep benches in banking, payments, risk, and compliance. He pointed to the cluster around Preston Center, where Augustus has been working out of a temporary WeWork space. \u201cThere\u2019s probably 15 banks in that area right there,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The company has narrowed its permanent office search to three Uptown locations, Quarles said in late May.<\/p>\n

He also credited the state\u2019s posture toward financial technology and digital assets. Texas, Quarles said, \u201chas positioned itself as a destination for FinTech, digital asset firms,\u201d and he pointed to Gov. Greg Abbott and Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson for promoting the message that \u201cDallas is open for business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cY\u2019all Street,\u201d he acknowledged, has become shorthand for Dallas-Fort Worth\u2019s status as a national financial hub with the planned Texas Stock Exchange<\/a> and a growing number of capital-markets firms adding to the region\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n

While the official headquarters and regulatory home base of Augustus Bank will be anchored in Dallas\u2014run by Quarles\u2014an additional office in New York will maintain staff to interact with major financial institutions and crypto firms. Augustus also has regulatory subsidiaries across Europe, where its digital foundation and early business roots started.<\/p>\n

Dabitz, the CEO and public face of Augustus, is running strategy and vision from New York, Quarles said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Augustus revealed its name and brand in May, alongside the OCC news, after years operating as Ivy, a European payments startup. \u201cToday, Ivy becomes Augustus,\u201d the company announced. \u201cSame team. Same vision. New brand.\u201d [Image courtesy of Augustus]<\/p>\n

From Berlin fintech to Dallas bank<\/p>\n

Augustus grew out of Ivy, a payments company four founders started in Berlin. \u201cThey\u2019re all brilliant,\u201d Quarles said. Besides Dabitz, there is chief technology officer Simon Wimmer, who\u2019s building the core banking stack; chief operating officer Joshua Becker, whom Quarles calls \u201ca great leader of people\u201d; and chief revenue officer Peter Lieck, who leads Augustus\u2019 work with partners.<\/p>\n

Ivy built payment rails in Europe starting in 2022. Quarles called it a Berlin payments company that had grown \u201cvery successful in Europe,\u201d moving money for digital-asset firms and holding licenses in Finland and Poland.<\/p>\n

Ivy\u2019s software lets merchants accept instant bank payments and \u201cskip intermediaries and any associated transaction fees,\u201d according to FinTech Futures, which reported a $20 million Series A<\/a> in 2023. By 2025, Ivy had added stablecoin settlement in Circle\u2019s USDC and EURC, layering crypto rails onto its bank-payment network.<\/p>\n

The decision to pursue a U.S. bank charter came at a leadership offsite last July, Quarles said. The company had grown 10x a year while processing billions in euro clearing, and it was seeing \u201ca lot of demand for access to the U.S. payment rails.\u201d
The rebrand of the Ivy name and the bank-charter plan were made public in May, alongside the OCC news. <\/p>\n

The Roman emperor Augustus \u201cwas the inventor of modern currency,\u201d Dabitz explained on LinkedIn. \u201cWhen he came into power every province had their own coin. He centralized the mint, the coinage, and invented what we still know today: The national currency system.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was also \u201cthe original underdog,\u201d Dabitz wrote. Augustus was named Julius Caesar\u2019s heir when \u201cthere were easily 10 people who were objectively more likely than him to win.\u201d He added, \u201cI\u2019m proud of a team that also succeeded, against all odds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work ethic on this team is tremendous,\u201d Quarles said. When regulators sent questions, the four founders \u201cwould work long hours\u201d with his bank team to answer them. Around Dabitz, the company has stacked an executive bench with banking veterans.<\/p>\n

Joe Schenone, the chief financial officer, came up through JPMorgan Chase and Japan\u2019s MUFG and has turned two technology companies into chartered banks. Kyle Steed, the chief risk officer, is a former bank regulator who was most recently interim chief risk officer at United Texas Bank. Andy Riggs is the chief credit officer. In May, the company named Benjamin Alexander, from Column, as chief compliance officer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Benjamin Alexander, Augustus\u2019 chief compliance officer, joined from Column with 15 years in compliance, including at JPMorgan Chase and HSBC. In a company video, he said that banks have \u201cdrained\u201d global access by reflexively \u201cde-risking\u201d \u2014 exiting whole categories of customers \u2014 and recalled regulators keeping a \u201cscorecard\u201d of how many a bank had cut off. [Photo\/Augustus video<\/a>]<\/p>\n

A rare approval, and a narrow window<\/p>\n

Full national bank charters are hard to come by. Fortune reported that Augustus is only the eighth full national bank charter the OCC has granted since 2010. Other recent approvals for firms such as Ripple were narrower trust licenses with significant restrictions.<\/p>\n

Closer to home, Dallas Innovates reported<\/a> in 2020 that North Texas had not seen a de novo bank since 2009. TYME Bank filed in 2020 but later withdrew<\/a> its application. Augustus also arrives as parts of the region\u2019s banking scene have consolidated, with Comerica Bank, Veritex Community Bank, and Vista Bank all acquired by larger out-of-state buyers in the past year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe window of opportunity opened up after the election,\u201d Quarles said. He pointed to a shift in the administration and new leadership at the OCC, including Comptroller Jonathan Gould, whom he called \u201copen to innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The aforementioned GENIUS Act, the stablecoin law passed in July 2025, was \u201cvery, very critical,\u201d because it allowed banks to participate in stablecoin and digital-asset activity within a regulated framework. He also credited the Clarity Act as adding \u201cmore framework that is much needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

James Fitzgerald, founder and managing partner of Valar Ventures, a Peter Thiel\u2013co\u2011founded venture fund, speaking from the investor side in a video conversation<\/a>, said it has become possible to get a new U.S. banking license only in the last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese windows, when they open,\u201d he said, \u201cthey sometimes aren\u2019t open for very long.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Augustus team first met with the OCC\u2019s licensing staff for a pre-filing meeting around October, Quarles said. The company filed its formal application on Dec. 18, 2025, according to the OCC decision<\/a>. It received preliminary approval less than five months later.<\/p>\n

Quarles first called the pace \u201cimpressive,\u201d then upgraded it to \u201cmiraculous\u201d\u2014especially for \u201ca novel bank like this.\u201d He credited OCC staff for aiming at a roughly 120\u2011day turnaround and Augustus executives for responding around the clock.<\/p>\n

Fortune reported <\/a>that OCC officials \u201cmay have been reassured by Dabitz\u2019s team at Augustus,\u201d which includes longtime veterans like Quarles.<\/p>\n

But the pace wasn\u2019t guaranteed. If regulators had soured on the business plan or the management team, Quarles said, approval \u201ccould take years \u2026 to get across the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis Wright Tremaine, a law firm that tracks new bank charters, wrote that the decision \u201cmay provide an early indication<\/a> of how the OCC intends to handle novel payments, tokenization, and stablecoin-related banking models.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company has raised $40 million from Valar Ventures and Creandum, whose portfolio includes Spotify and Klarna, along with the founders of Ramp, Deel, and Circle, according to its announcement<\/a> and Fortune.<\/p>\n

Valar backed the company during its initial fundraising rounds when it was still operating under its former name, Ivy. Fitzgerald said the team has \u201cbeen really smart about understanding how the ecosystem is changing and evolving and making sure that they\u2019re always on the front end of that evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

James Fitzgerald, founder and managing partner of Peter Thiel\u2019s Valar Ventures, an early Augustus backer. In the company\u2019s launch video, he said banks are running on \u201ctechnology that\u2019s not boomer technology, it\u2019s not even built by the parents of the boomers, it\u2019s built by the grandparents of the boomers.\u201d [Screenshot\/Augustus video<\/a>]<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next<\/p>\n

Before Augustus Bank can open its digital doors, it still has to clear a pre\u2011opening exam from the OCC this summer, secure FDIC deposit insurance, and win Federal Reserve approval for its holding company, Quarles said. The OCC decision requires the bank to hold initial paid-in capital, net of organizational and pre-opening expenses, of no less than $52.5 million.<\/p>\n

The stablecoin subsidiary is a separate step; its application hasn\u2019t been filed yet.<\/p>\n

And not all observers are sold on the model. William Chittenden, who leads the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking Foundation at SMU\u2019s Cox School of Business, told<\/a> the Dallas Business Journal he had not seen a successful payments-only, stablecoin-centric bank before. \u201cI think it\u2019s an interesting model,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how plausible it really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell Harvey, a Duke University finance professor, told <\/a>the New York Post that round-the-clock access is needed but that \u201cany new code, like the Augustus \u2018proprietary code\u2019 is untested, and as such, subject to attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quarles isn\u2019t taking a victory lap just yet. \u201cConditional approval is just that,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s conditional. \u2026There is a lot of work still to do.\u201d What the OCC decision is, he said, is \u201ca big hurdle and milestone.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the remaining approvals fall into place, Augustus expects to employ between 26 and 30 people in its first year, the majority in Dallas, and grow to just under 100 over three years, according to Quarles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have important work ahead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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