Across the United States, challenger banks are springing up, such as Chime and Simple. But, within the US, most of these don’t actually have their own charter.

Meet Varo Money — the digital bank that wants to become the first challenger bank to receive its own US charter.

I spoke with Wesley Wright, Varo’s COO, on the Payments Innovation podcast to hear about why pursuing their own charter is so important. Wesley’s response?

Because they want to own the entire customer experience.

What we talked about:

• Traditional banks haven’t responded to everyone’s needs
• Varo focuses on long-term, core banking relationship with customers
• Varo’s goal: own the customer experience
• The sponsor bank model versus being a chartered bank
• What would need to change to become their own charter
• How does Varo determine which processes to keep in house and which to outsource?
• Varo’s “customer-centric” approach

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Until next time!

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