Lorum, a specialist correspondent institution serving financial institutions globally, has filed an application with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter.
According to Lorum, the application is subject to regulatory review and approval. Founded in 2023, Lorum operates on a 100% reserve model, holding client funds fully backed by cash and cash equivalents with no lending book, positioning clearing, custody, cash management, and wholesale foreign exchange as fiduciary services rather than ancillary functions of a lending business. The company reports 55 times growth in 2025 from inception, with USD clearing representing 60% of volumes. Lorum is backed by Northzone, Flourish Ventures, Illuminate Financial, and Raba.
Structural gap in correspondent banking
The filing is framed around a structural argument about the correspondent banking market. As globally systemically important banks withdrew from mid-market correspondent relationships, financial institutions, including payment service providers, trading platforms, payroll operators, and marketplaces, turned to regional and fintech-forward banks. Lorum argues that those institutions are lending businesses that use institutional client deposits to fund loan books, creating misaligned incentives where holding funds serves the institution's balance sheet rather than moving them efficiently.
According to BIS CPMI data cited by Lorum, active correspondent banking relationships have declined by more than 20% across the Americas over the past decade, leaving many financial institutions dependent on intermediary chains with limited visibility and no guarantee of continuity.
Lorum's operating model is built around Named Account Custody, a structure that creates a direct legal and operational relationship between each account holder and the custody framework, reducing the opacity and chain risk associated with nested clearing models. Subject to approval, a national trust bank charter would bring Lorum under direct OCC supervision and enable direct participation in the core US dollar clearing infrastructure.
George Davis, Co-Founder and CEO of Lorum, noted that the banks serving this market are lending out the money they are supposed to be moving, describing Named Account Custody as a structural rather than technological solution to the problem.
