The Trump family joins the wave of founding new banks On August 24th, according to Bloomberg, the Trump family is just one step away from owning their own bank. Members of President Trump's family and their business partners have received preliminary approval to establish a bank. This progress comes at a rare window of opportunity: thanks to the Trump administration's push to relax regulations, the difficulty of applying for a license for the National Bank of the United States has now dropped to its lowest level in nearly 20 years. According to data from the Office of the Superintendent of the Currency (OCC), during the first 19 months of Trump's second term, the agency approved 22 banking license applications, exceeding the total number approved in the previous 5 years. Among them, many newly approved institutions come from the fields of financial technology and digital assets. After the 2008 financial crisis, the number of bank license applications decreased significantly, and regulatory agencies tightened their scrutiny, so there has rarely been such a large-scale approval wave in recent years. In the past, the approval of banking license applications often took months or even years, but under the leadership of OCC head Jonathan Gould, OCC's goal is to respond to every application within 120 days. However, it is uncertain how long this approval window can last. The Republican Party will face a crucial test in the midterm elections in November this year. If the Democratic Party gains a greater advantage in Congress, regulatory agencies responsible for reviewing bank license applications may face stricter scrutiny. So far, the vast majority of applications have been approved. This means that the US financial industry will undergo a large-scale "experiment" for the first time: whether a large number of non-traditional financial companies can achieve profitability while maintaining safety and stability after entering the banking industry. Supporters of lowering the entry threshold for new technology banks believe that this will help alleviate the trend of continuous consolidation in the traditional banking industry, while addressing the issue of the expanding size of the largest banks in the United States. World Liberty Financial, a subsidiary of the Trump family, has also joined the ranks of new bank applicants in this round, along with stablecoin issuer Circle, consumer bank Nu Holdings Ltd., and cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase Global Inc. For the Trump family, their core goal is to expand the use of their US dollar stablecoin USD1. World Liberty Financial stated earlier this month that establishing a bank would enable it to store assets used to support stablecoins, thereby reducing related costs, after obtaining conditional approval. Trump will become the first US president to have his children establish a bank during his term, but other US presidents have also maintained close ties with the banking industry. The New York financial company operated by the Roosevelt family has a history of over a century; President George H.W. Bush's father served as a managing partner at Brown Brothers Harriman, a private banking and financial services company. [Original link]