The subprime lender’s CEO said the agreement to buy BNC National Bank “remains in effect.” But he cited a “lack of clearly articulated standards” from regulators.

Subprime lender OppFi has withdrawn its applications to acquire Arizona-based BNC National Bank, the company said Tuesday.

However, the fintech’s CEO stressed the company isn’t giving up on obtaining a bank charter.

"To clarify, the deal did not fall apart," OppFi CEO Todd Schwartz said in an email to American Banker. "Our merger agreement with BNCCORP [the bank’s holding company] remains in effect."

In a press release Tuesday, Chicago-based OppFi said it “proactively engaged with federal regulators before entering into the BNC transaction and has diligently responded to extensive information requests” from the office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. “throughout the application process.”

"We believe that our applications satisfied the existing statutory criteria for approval, but there is a lack of clearly articulated standards by which those criteria are being used to evaluate our applications and the proposed combination with BNC," Schwartz said in the press release. "We encourage federal regulators to expeditiously articulate clear standards that will allow innovative community banks and financial technology platforms to combine to better serve the tens of millions of Americans whose needs are not being met by traditional banks."

Schwartz’s sentiment echoes that of another Chicago-based fintech whose recent bank-acquisition journey hit a similar speed bump.

“Regulators do not have clear standards for nonbanks that want to become banks and that serve customers whose credit needs today are met mostly outside of the banking system,” Enova CEO Steve Cunningham said in September, affirming the fintech had withdrawn its applications to the Fed and OCC to buy digital lender Grasshopper Bank .

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