Zaria Systems has filed an application with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to charter Zaria National Trust Bank (ZNTB), a special-purpose national bank that would limit its activities to trust company operations and related functions. The filing, announced on 5 August 2026, marks a significant step in the Wyoming-based infrastructure firm’s bid to bring federally regulated fiduciary services to structured finance markets that have historically operated without them.
If the OCC approves the charter, ZNTB would function as a single regulated counterparty across four service lines currently distributed across multiple providers: corporate trustee services for asset-backed securities (ABS), collateralised loan obligations (CLOs) and other structured products; agency services for syndicated and bilateral credit facilities; combined loan servicing and collateral management for banks and direct lenders; and backup servicing and collateral management with same-day transition capability in the event of a primary servicer default.
Why the charter matters
The structural argument behind the filing is straightforward. Traditional ABS, CLO and mortgage-backed securities markets have long operated on periodic, batch-based collateral verification. The growth of securities-backed lending, digital asset-backed credit and tokenised instruments has accelerated demand for continuous, real-time collateral monitoring, automated margin calls and unified reporting across both conventional and digital assets. Zaria contends that existing trust infrastructure has not kept pace.
Co-founder and chief executive Emily Barron said the charter would allow the company to embed that real-time capability inside a federally regulated institution. “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,” she said. “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.”
Zaria said it has already begun providing servicing, collateral management and agency services infrastructure to structured finance and digital asset lenders ahead of the filing, work it intends to consolidate under ZNTB once a charter is granted.
Regulatory and competitive context
The OCC charter application is consequential for the digital-assets lending space, where regulatory status has long been contested. Special-purpose national bank charters have a complicated history: the OCC granted its first fintech charter in 2018, but legal challenges from state regulators, particularly the New York Department of Financial Services, created years of uncertainty. A trust bank charter is a narrower and more legally settled vehicle than a full-service fintech charter, which makes it a more tractable path through the OCC approval process.
Wyoming’s election as the proposed principal office is deliberate. The state has developed trust law frameworks specifically designed for digital assets and has attracted a cluster of fintech and digital asset businesses, in part through its special purpose depository institution regime.
The corporate trust market itself is dominated by large custodial banks, including BNY Mellon and Wilmington Trust, both of which Zaria’s proposed management team has drawn alumni from. Zaria’s differentiation claim rests not on scale but on the architecture: a purpose-built real-time collateral monitoring system rather than legacy batch-processing infrastructure adapted to new asset classes. Whether that technical advantage translates into commercial displacement of entrenched providers depends heavily on the OCC’s timeline, any conditions attached to the charter, and the willingness of structured finance desks and CLO managers to shift trustee relationships.
The next milestone is the OCC’s review process, which typically involves a preliminary review phase, a formal application period and public comment before any conditional or final approval.
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