Augustus gets OCC approval to charter a US national bank — built to modernize dollar clearing for global financial institutions

Speaker 4: Yes.

Speaker 1: Didn't know she was involved. I'm familiar with Gwen Shotwell, but I guess I guess Gwyneth Paltrow also got an early check-in. You know, she is an investor. It's it's totally possible that she has SpaceX allocation at this point. I think it was a I think it was a mis tag. Anyway, we have our first guest in the waiting room. Let's bring in Ferdinand from Augustus National Bank. How are you doing, Ferdinand? Good to see you again.

Speaker 12: Hello. Welcome back.

Speaker 5: What's happening? Great to

Speaker 9: be back.

Speaker 5: Big day.

Speaker 1: Big day. You've been on the show before, but remind everyone about yourself, what you do, and then give us the news.

Speaker 3: So I'm I'm I'm Ferdinand. We have been charging a bank called Augustus. Today, we have announced conditional approval for that bank. I can give the I can give the brief intro and the brief speed on the company. Please. We have, like because when I come to the show, I have to bring a prop, and a guy a guy, Peter, a guy, Peter Thiel, of course, always said when you have a fintech company, you have to, like, bring the bring the $100 bill.

Speaker 1: Oh, there we go.

Speaker 9: Yeah. Here.

Speaker 3: So I think we can do the same thing where we we always have this little joke where we bring the $100 bill, then we ask, what is the problem with this? Mhmm. Right? But it's a it's a trick question. And in our opinion, there is no problem with this, and the dollar is the is the best product in the history of the world.

Speaker 5: Yeah. Same PMF. Insane PMF.

Speaker 3: Same PMF. Like like sometimes there smart smart people that tell me they're like, water? What about water free? But no. No. I think, like, the dollar is the best price of the world, and there's there's quite infinite global demand, for it, especially outside of The United States. Right? And I think there are all kinds of, like, quantitative ways to think about it that that Europe and The US, they contributed 40% to global GDP, but they, they they they contribute 80% to global reserve holdings and global money movement. They're also, like, qualitative ways to think about where I think, like, the the existence and, frankly, commercial success of the stablecoin stack. Right? The global dollar account is like, frankly, it might be a pure expression of this thesis where where this is the best product in the history of the world and, and there's infinite global demand. But

Speaker 1: So weird oh, yeah. But

Speaker 3: It does. And it's big but for us, distribution is broken. Right? And we think distribution breaks at the at the clearing bank layer.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 3: Right? And then what is a clearing bank? A clearing bank is the bank that that has the charter and actually has the, account at the Federal Reserve or any other central bank to to to actually move and hold the money. Right? And we think these clearing banks are made of paper. Right? We think they're slow. So if you wanna, move money through them, it takes a day. Maybe it takes two days. They're they're closed on the weekends, and they close after 5PM, and they close on Christmas because humans run them. And we think they kind of like they come from a different time, and we think with Augustus, the the thesis is there's an opportunity to to rethink that for for the AI era and and build that from scratch in a in a full stack way.

Speaker 5: Okay. I understand. News today?

Speaker 1: The yeah. Approval.

Speaker 3: We got a bank.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We

Speaker 3: have conditional approval from the OEC to to charter Augustus as a US full service national bank.

Speaker 5: Yeah. Alright. So my first question, when did you know that you wanted to name your bank after Augustus to Rico?

Speaker 3: Yeah. I've I've already had someone message me and I think like Oh, yeah. Paul falls down. He can buy the domain for less wrong price or or something like that.

Speaker 1: So so you're bullish on the dollar. I was just watching Ray Dalio. Ray Dalio on Ross Douthat. He's extremely bearish on America, bearish on the dollar. Have you heard any of the popular super cycle theories America is doomed, the ultimate black pills on the dollar, and how do you push back?

Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I've I've heard a lot of them. I think you you can disagree with some. You can disagree with with the other, but I think it's also, like, it's a question of mission. Mhmm. Right? Like, what's the future you want to build?

Speaker 5: Sure.

Speaker 3: And I think that what are the alternatives? Right? And I think, in a way, the mission for this company would be much less clear ten or twenty years ago when it was only the euro and the dollar and nothing else mattered, and there was there was no competition on the global stage. Right? But today, there is. Right? You've got the adversaries. You've got, like, China building the digital yen and, like, shipping it all into Africa and distributing it pretty nicely. You've got Russia pitching their bricks pay thing every other day and, like, yeah. Like, we're gonna get off the dollar and have our own little clearing thing here. And so it's about mission. It's about the question, how can we secure and advance Western currency dominance? Mhmm. Right? And I think, like, one one instrument here is to build better clearing banks to remove friction from the distribution of this amazing product because the product market fit is still there. Right? If you talk to people outside of, yes, in many cases, this is the golden standard. This is what the people want most. It's just, like, incredibly hard to get.

Speaker 1: Mhmm. Last question. Who's the customer? How do you acquire them?

Speaker 3: So customers are global financial institutions. Okay.

Speaker 1: So not startups. You're not going to individuals or anything like that, at least not yet.

Speaker 3: Exactly. Nothing of that. Yeah. We go to global FIs. So so a bank in South America, bank in Southeast Asia, a financial institution in the global South Mhmm. Or or anywhere else, and and we acquire them. Right? And so we we've launched Euro clearing Okay. Like, a while ago and and sold that to many of the largest French institutions. Right? So we do, handsome money for companies like Kraken, for example, and process billions of euros for them today. And so now the hope is, of course, that can we that we can be much more useful to these customers with the dollar as we plug that into the platform as well today.