Revolut has dropped plans to buy a U.S. lender as a means to get a foothold in the American market and will instead apply for a banking license from the Trump administration, the Financial Times reported. 

Revolut has been in discussions with U.S. officials about applying for a national charter through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the newspaper said. People familiar with the talks told the FT that the fintech firm expects the process to move relatively quickly given the White House’s deregulatory push.  

The move marks a reversal from Revolut’s approach as recently as August, when it was searching for a nationally chartered U.S. bank to acquire in the hopes that the acquisition would permit company to offering lending across all 50 states, the FT said. 

The shift is due in part to the determination by the fintech that acquiring a U.S. institution would prove “tricky,” and would force the neobank to commit to running brick-and-mortar branches, according to the report. 

Revolut’s leadership has not yet made a final decision on whether to apply for a de novo charter from OCC but feels the U.S. market is critical for the company’s global growth strategy, the FT said. 

Earlier this month, the company applied for a full banking license in Peru as part of its effort to “roll out a comprehensive range of products and services,” Bloomberg reported.

The U.K.-based fintech is separately trying to secure a full banking license from the Bank of England, which has accepted Revolut’s application but restricted its banking division to holding deposits of only £50,000 while it processes the request, the FT said. 

Last month, the OCC conditionally approved two new national trust bank charters for Circle and Ripple, and conditionally approved applications from BitGo, Paxos, and Fidelity Digital Assets that would convert the companies’ existing state trust bank charters into national charters. 

Read more at the Financial Times