The FDIC last week gave final approval to Varo’s application for federal deposit insurance coverage. With a target market of underserved households, Varo is poised to become the first true mobile-only federally chartered bank in the United States.
Varo has persevered in a three-year struggle, breached the wall and many others are going to soon follow.
Varo has persevered in a three-year struggle, breached the wall and many others are going to soon follow.
Varo is built on the Swiss Temenos T24 banking platform - which is essentially a plug and play, cloud-based, full-stack banking software system (that even includes an optional “inclusive finance” module). Think of it as a bank in a box.
The Temenos T24 and similar platforms make it much easier to create and build a new bank or financial service company quickly and at a relatively low initial and ongoing cost (again: speed and scale).
Banking regulators tend to be skeptical and conservative about shiny new things which makes banks adverse to being first in adopting new technology. The approval of Varos’ application equates to a de facto regulatory endorsement of the bank in a box software concept and significantly lowers the regulatory risk and hurdles for new banks and banks that want to re-invent themselves.
LMI households are going to soon have mobile-based access to banks offering insured checking and savings accounts, payment tools, lending products and online support and services that will be able to scale quickly with technology. Financial capability nonprofits without the technology to connect and interact with clients with the level of automation offered by these new banks are going to have a difficult time remaining relevant.
