Zaria Seeks Trust Bank Charter for Crypto-Backed Loans

Zaria Systems, a builder of real-time infrastructure for mark-to-market credit and structured finance, aims to secure a charter for a special-purpose national bank that will limit its activities to the operations of a trust company and related activities, the company said in a Wednesday (Aug. 5) press release.

The company filed an application with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to charter Zaria National Trust Bank (ZNTB), according to the release.

The new bank charter application for Zaria National Trust Bank was received by the OCC on Friday (July 31), and the public comment period will run to Aug. 31, according to the OCC’s corporate applications search.

The proposed national trust bank would bring federally regulated fiduciary infrastructure to structured finance and digital asset-backed lending markets, Zaria Systems said in the release.

ZNTB would offer a single regulated counterparty across corporate trustee services for asset-backed securities, collateralized loan obligations and other structured finance transactions; agency services for syndicated and bilateral credit facilities; combined loan servicing and collateral management for banks and other direct lenders; and backup servicing and backup collateral management with same-day transition readiness if a primary servicer defaults, per the release.

“Lenders, asset managers and their investors increasingly need a fiduciary counterparty that can monitor collateral in real time, not just at the end of a reporting period,” Zaria Co-Founder and CEO Emily Barron said in the release. “Filing for a national trust bank charter allows us to build that infrastructure inside a federally regulated institution, so lenders and their counterparties get the same regulatory clarity and credibility they already expect from a bank, applied to markets that have never had it before.”

PYMNTS reported in February that more than two dozen new de novo charter applications had been filed with regulators in recent months and that “banking is back in vogue.”

Special-purpose banks, which are often focused on trust services, payments or custody, offer precision. By limiting activities, they can tailor compliance and operations to specific use cases, the report said.

PYMNTS reported in March that during 2025 alone, the OCC received 14 de novo charter applications, a number nearly equaling the total applications received by the agency in the previous four years combined.