Augustus, the payments startup backed by Peter Thiel, received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) of the United States to establish a national bank focused on AI-powered payments and stablecoin settlement infrastructure. The company will be able to expand its European banking operations into the American market, where competition to modernize cross-border payment systems is intensifying.
According to the company, Augustus National Bank is “the first clearing bank for the AI era,” designed to interact directly with automated agents at the speed of computation, rather than relying on batch processes and human operators.
Founded in 2022, Augustus operates under European banking licenses and processes billions of dollars for institutional clients, including exchange Kraken. However, the OCC’s conditional approval must still meet pre-opening requirements before becoming effective.
Augustus, which has raised approximately $40 million backed by Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Creandum, and founders of companies such as Ramp and Deel, has joined the small group of digital asset firms that have reached advanced stages in the federal process of obtaining a national bank charter.
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