iSignthis has applied for the licence which will allow it to bank with the Reserve Bank of Australia and place customer funds at the RBA repo window to earn interest.
iSignthis chief executive John Karantzis said the company is well progressed with its APRA application and anticipates it will be granted in the first quarter of 2019.
The new bank will not offer loans or credits, but its tier 1 capital requirement have been agreed in principle and its current balance sheet meets APRA’s capital requirements.
iSignthis says its network in Europe is live, allowing it to process transactions directly to visa and mastercard without any other banks in between.
Mr Karantzis said the bank’s payment channel capability would be more extensive than many offered by traditional banks in the world.
“It not only be more extensive than Australia’s big four banks, but is comparable to card payment channel capability offered by the world’s largest banks”.
The licence is the latest move from the firm after it acquired core banking vendor Probanx Information Systems earlier this year and launched a B2B banking service with start-up Gobbill in June.
