UBS gets OCC approval for national bank charter

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Key insight: The conversion to a national bank charter will allow UBS to expand the types of products and services it offers, enabling it to “go head-to-head with offering everyday banking,” said UBS Bank USA CEO Brian Carlin.Supporting data: The application to change bank charters comes as Swiss regulators have proposed raising capital requirements while U.S. regulators have proposed lowering them. Forward look: The only visible change for customers will be the addition of the “National Association” title, or N.A., after the bank’s name.

Swiss banking giant UBS received approval from federal regulators to convert to a national bank that top executives said would allow the bank to expand and better compete in the U.S.  

On Friday, UBS executives announced on LinkedIn that the comptroller of the currency had approved the application of its $1.6 trillion-asset UBS Bank USA to convert from a Utah-chartered industrial bank to a national charter. Zurich-based UBS received conditional approval in January from the OCC, after filing its application in October 2025.

“We are now going to go head-to-head with offering everyday banking,” Brian Carlin, CEO of UBS Bank USA, said in the LinkedIn video. “Now that we’ve converted from a state-chartered bank to a nationally chartered bank, it really expands both the clients that we serve as well as the types of products and services that we can offer.” 

The charter application comes while Swiss regulators are considering forcing UBS to hold tens of billions of dollars more in capital, and as the U.S. aims to reduce capital requirements for banks. In response, UBS reportedly had recent discussions with Trump administration officials about potentially re-domiciling in the U.S.. 

UBS is currently focused on a “strategic reset” intended to drive profitability in its Americas wealth business to a 15% margin by 2027. Following its acquisition of Credit Suisse in 2024, the bank has also been active in streamlining its operations, including the sale of its O’Connor hedge fund business to Cantor Fitzgerald and the resolution of legacy legal matters with the Department of Justice. 

Nothing changes immediately for clients, but personal checking and savings accounts will be rolled out in 2027, a spokesman said. UBS offers basic banking services, including securities-based lending and credit cards, to private wealth clients. Certain types of personal checking and savings accounts have been available through brokerage accounts, but were not as universally accessible as the new services will be under the national charter. 

Rob Karofsky, co-president of UBS global wealth management and president of the Americas, said UBS intends to strengthen its U.S. banking platform and the national bank charter shows it is committed to the U.S.

“A lot of hard work has gone into getting us to this point,” he said.

The only change customers will see is that UBS will add the national association title, or N.A., after the bank’s name as part of the agreement with the OCC and the Federal Reserve to change to a federal charter.

Karofsky said the charter will enable continued investments “in a modern, full-service banking platform that delivers a more seamless client-first experience.”

“As we scale this will strengthen our momentum in the U.S., and it reinforces our ambition to lead as a premier global wealth manager,” he said. “We have meaningful opportunities to grow lending and deposit activity, assets and profitability and ultimately strengthen the overall UBS franchise.”

Last month, top UBS executives testified before a Senate panel that has pushed the bank to provide a full historical excavation of Nazi-related accounts from the Holocaust era. The hearing marked a six-year effort — championed by Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., as well as Jewish leaders in the U.S. — to reexamine Swiss banks’ role in the Nazis’ theft of European Jews’ assets.