Augustus

Augustus is a financial technology company building a modern clearing bank designed for the artificial intelligence era. The firm, formerly known as Ivy, received conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in May 2026 to establish Augustus Bank, N.A., a full-service national bank. This approval positions it to become a key piece of U.S. financial infrastructure, offering a modern alternative to the traditional correspondent banking system. Founded in 2022 by Ferdinand Dabitz, Joshua Becker, Simon Wimmer, and Peter Lieck, the company aims to solve what it views as a fundamental breakdown in the distribution of the U.S. dollar. The founders argue that legacy clearing models, which are slow, built for human interaction, and closed on weekends and holidays, are inadequate for a global, machine-driven economy. The leadership team includes CEO Ferdinand Dabitz, who at 25 is set to be the youngest CEO of a federally chartered bank in over a century, and President Greg Quarles, a veteran banker with decades of experience, including nearly 20 years at the OCC. Augustus is developing a proprietary core banking platform called Marble from the ground up, built around AI, programmable money, and stablecoins. The bank is designed to be always-on, enabling 24/7/365 real-time settlement for its clients. Its target customers are not retail depositors but global financial institutions, fintechs, banks, and digital asset exchanges that need continuous, programmable, and direct access to U.S. dollar clearing and payment rails like Swift, ACH, and SEPA. The company already processes billions in transactions for clients like Kraken through its regulated European subsidiaries. In July 2026, Augustus announced a $180 million Series B funding round at a $1 billion valuation, led by Tiger Global. This capital is intended to accelerate its mission to provide direct, high-quality U.S. dollar access to international financial institutions, particularly in Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Keywords: autonomous clearing bank, programmable money, stablecoins, AI-native banking, OCC charter, financial infrastructure, digital dollar, 24/7 settlement, machine-to-machine payments, correspondent banking, fintech infrastructure, B2B banking, Ferdinand Dabitz, Greg Quarles, Ivy Bank, real-time payments, financial plumbing, banking as a service, wholesale payments, digital assets, cross-border payments, API-first banking, global dollar bank, Marble core banking, payment rails