Avanti officially granted bank charter and approval of business plan

The Wyoming State Banking Board has granted Avanti Bank & Trust a bank charter following a unanimous 8-0 vote. This gives Avanti the same powers as national banks in its approved business plan. The bank announced that they initially issue tokenized US dollar on Liquid, a Bitcoin sidechain, and Ethereum.

What is Avanti?

The Avanti Financial Group, Inc. is a Wyoming bank that aims to build a compliant bridge between the US dollar payments system and a custodian of digital assets. They plan to guarantee this with strict institutional custody standards. Avanti will be fully compliant with all applicable laws and regulations, including the Bank Secrecy Act and federal “know your customer,” anti-money laundering and related laws and regulations. 

Avanti’s business plan

Avanti’s approved business plan includes the afore-mentioned tokenized US dollar called “Avit,” custody services for digital assets as a qualified custodian under the Investment Advisers Act, API-based online banking services and prime services for digital assets. The bank also plans to provide commercial accounts in early 2021 and other accounts with high minimum balance requirements a little later.

Caitlin Long, Avanti’s founder and chief executive officer, said: 

We will provide products and services that do not exist in the market today. Currently, the only type of U.S. financial institution that can provide final and simultaneous settlement of trades between digital assets and the U.S. dollar—because it is the only type currently approved to handle both within the same legal entity—is a Wyoming special purpose depository institution like Avanti. Wyoming has the only U.S. regulator with a bank supervisory and regulatory program for digital assets that is near completion.

The Avit is designed to solve the most common problems with legacy payment systems faced by traders, investors and corporate treasurers. It has also been designed to solve the legal, accounting and tax issues of stablecoins. As Long puts it, “we need this product yesterday."