Ferdinand Dabitz
13 May 2026Deel CEO Joins, Thinking Machines, OpenAI Joins, Anthropic SPV’s, Helsing $18B
Augustus: Youngest CEO of a Federally Chartered US Bank
Hosts introduce Ferdinand Dabitz, co-founder and CEO of Augustus — recently rebranded from Ivy and conditionally approved by the OCC, set to make him the youngest leader of a federally chartered US bank. Dabitz explains Augustus is rethinking clearing for the AI era, arguing that hard currencies like the dollar have infinite global demand but broken distribution at the clearing-bank level, citing Citi's correspondent banking business at roughly $32 billion in revenue and $11 billion in net income. He describes the charter process: repeated trips to DC, 679 pages of application material, and an executive team built with a former senior OCC leader who went on to run several US banks.
Rebuilding the Bank Core: Genius Act & Stablecoin Clearing
Dabitz explains turning a bank from a system of record into a 'system of action' by rebuilding the bank core — the FIS/Fiserv/Jack Henry infrastructure he calls the ultimate pre-AI system of record, whose rot causes slow, business-hours-only correspondent banking. He ties the opportunity to two regulatory shifts: de novo national bank charters becoming possible again after a post-2008 freeze, and the Genius Act permitting banks to interact with stablecoins, which he sees as an instant, global, 24/7 clearing rail and a future rail for agentic commerce. He argues incumbent banks that don't adapt won't be around long-term, notes only a handful of new national banks hold conditional approval, and closes on the Ivy-to-Augustus rebrand and augustus.com.