Nayax filed an application with the Connecticut Department of Banking on August 6, 2026, to establish Nayax America Bank, a non-depository innovation bank. The same day, the payments and commerce platform for unattended retail (vending machines, EV charging stations, car washes) launched Yellow Account, an account and deposit service for small businesses that runs on Adyen as sponsor bank. Rent a license today, build one for tomorrow: the sequence sums up where payment fintechs are heading.
Accounts on Adyen now, cards and credit under the charter later
Yellow Account lets small businesses receive settlement funds, hold balances, and spend with linked business debit cards, the Yellow Cards, inside the Nayax platform. Adyen, a licensed bank, holds the underlying deposits as sponsor bank. The charter would let Nayax issue corporate cards, controlled-spend programs, and short-term credit (merchant cash advances, equipment financing) on its own regulated infrastructure. Because the new bank would not take deposits, Nayax says Adyen would remain the sponsor bank for all customer balances.
Connecticut offers a bank charter without retail deposits
Nayax did not pick Connecticut for tax reasons. Section 36a-70(t) of the Connecticut General Statutes provides for an innovation bank charter built for fintechs: a bank that cannot accept retail deposits and does not need FDIC insurance, but otherwise has the powers of a chartered bank. Minimum capital is $5 million. The review, which includes an independent feasibility study and a public hearing, is expected to take about six months, and approval is not guaranteed.
- Direct network access: the charter holder can connect to Visa and Mastercard without going through a third-party sponsor bank.
- A Fed master account: the bank can seek a master account and plug into Federal Reserve services.
- No retail deposits: the customers are businesses (small firms, merchants), not consumers.
- Precedents: Banking Circle US in Stamford and Numisma Bank in Greenwich have already taken this route.
The sponsor bank model has shown its limits
In the sponsor bank model, the core of Banking-as-a-Service, a fintech offers financial services under a partner bank’s license. The arrangement splits the margin, ties the fintech to a third party, and leaves it exposed when that partner fails. The 2024 collapse of Synapse, a BaaS middleman, froze the funds of hundreds of thousands of US neobank users and jolted the industry. A charter of its own gives a fintech back control over compliance, over issuing and, above all, over its direct relationship with the card networks and the central bank.
Adyen is both the partner and the model to outgrow
The irony is hard to miss. Nayax is relying on Adyen to launch Yellow Account while it builds the tool that will later make it less dependent on that kind of partnership. Adyen, which sells its European banking license and its US branch as a competitive edge, sits on both sides of the shift: an infrastructure provider to some, a model to bring in-house for others. Large PSPs sell banking as a service. Their most ambitious clients want to become the bank.
Still, the direction is clear. With fintechs applying for charters and banks buying networks, the line between a bank and a technology provider keeps blurring. Nayax, a low-profile specialist in payments at coffee machines and charging stations, is one more sign of the trend: past a certain volume, renting a bank costs more than becoming one.