If the OCC approves the charter, ZNTB would function as a single regulated counterparty across four service lines currently distributed across multiple providers: corporate trustee services for asset-backed securities (ABS), collateralised loan obligations (CLOs) and other structured products; agency services for syndicated and bilateral credit facilities; combined loan servicing and collateral management for banks and direct lenders; and backup servicing and collateral management with same-day transition capability in the event of a primary servicer default.

The structural argument behind the filing is straightforward. Traditional ABS, CLO and mortgage-backed securities markets have long operated on periodic, batch-based collateral verification. The growth of securities-backed lending, digital asset-backed credit and tokenised instruments has accelerated demand for continuous, real-time collateral monitoring, automated margin calls and unified reporting across both conventional and digital assets. Zaria contends that existing trust infrastructure has not kept pace.

Co-founder and chief executive Emily Barron said the charter would allow the company to embed that real-time capability inside a federally regulated institution. “Lenders, asset managers, and their investors increasingly need a fiduciary counterparty that can monitor collateral in real time, not just at the end of a reporting period,” she said. “Filing for a national trust bank charter allows us to build that infrastructure inside a federally regulated institution, so lenders and their counterparties get the same regulatory clarity and credibility they already expect from a bank, applied to markets that have never had it before.”

Zaria said it has already begun providing servicing, collateral management and agency services infrastructure to structured finance and digital asset lenders ahead of the filing, work it intends to consolidate under ZNTB once a charter is granted.

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