Varo Money Inc. is shooting to be the first national mobile bank. The mobile banking startupannounced Tuesday that it has applied for a national bank charterfrom the Office the Comptroller of the Currency and for federaldeposit insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to formVaro Bank N.A.

Varo is not applying for a special purposecharter because they are “generally used for a bigger companythat is applying as a subsidiary where banking is actually nottheir core business,” according to Emily Brauer Gill, director ofbrand and communications for Varo.

Brauer Gill noted that from its inception, Varo's founder, ColinWalsh, wanted to make the firm a national bank.

“Banking will be our core business, so we believe that thenational bank charter is the right one for what we want toachieve,” Brauer Gill said.

She said that Walsh left the financial services industry afterholding positions at Wells Fargo, Lloyds and American Express“because he saw this widening gap between what banks were makingand what they were offering from a product perspective, and what hethought the majority of people actually needed and wanted.”

The rest of the founding team and several other members of theleadership team also has a financial services background, BrauerGill said. “They know what is missing from a solution setperspective and what problems aren't being solved forcustomers.”

Other members of the team come from the consumer technologyspace. Brauer Gill is from Apple, while the head of products, JohnVars, was with TaskRabbit, and head of strategy Adam Nathan camefrom Lyft.

Brauer Gill said banking used to be about relationships, butmost banks have gotten too big to help their customers solve“everyday problems and really get ahead.” With higher operationalcosts, incumbent banks can only afford to offer higher-touch wealthmanagement and financial planning services to a small segment oftheir customers, she explained.

Incumbent banks are only making incremental changes to theirtechnology offerings, too, she said. “They're not looking to thefuture and making step changes to what banking really can be.That's what Varo is doing; the basic concept is we want to helpcustomers solve everyday financial problems.”

Varo believes it can do that by integrating traditional bankproducts — deposits, savings and lending — withtech-based financial health tools, Brauer Gill said. “Specificallywe are building cash flow projection, spend tracking, alerts andnotifications that are contextual, auto-savings, goal tracking, andcombining this in our app in a way that removes friction.”

Varo's target customer is the underserved “hands-off” bankingcustomer left behind by incumbent banks, Brauer Gill said. “Thisconcept of a hands-off person … is someone who doesn't manage theirmoney by spreadsheet, doesn't like budgets, and kind of manages bybank balance,” Brauer Gill explained.

She said that Varo's consumer research found that “a lot ofpeople have a number in their head that they're solving for andthey manage their money by logging on, checking their balance. Theythink they know what their expenses are, so they're doing mentalmath all the time, but everyone's human and they often get itwrong.”

Unlike other internet banks like Ally, Varo got its startonline. Ally grew out of GMAC, a division of GM. As analysts at PwCpointed out in a note published on Thursday, “internet banks haveexisted for quite some time, but even those banks were designedoutside the world of apps and smartphones.”

“As a first mover, Varo seeks to turn the main fintech weaknessinto a strength: the ability to grow assets by first building aconsistent, low-cost funding base,” according to a note by PwCpublished Thursday.

PwC wonders if Varo is setting an example worth following, asthe startup's leadership comes from the financial servicesindustry, rather than technology.

“Varo stands to become the first 'mobile-native' bank in theU.S. and could act as a proving ground for how these businessmodels may change in the future,” according to PwC. “Thefirst-mover advantage may prove to be a benefit, and it will beinteresting to see if other U.S.-based mobile-native banks, suchas Moven and Simple, pursue similarstrategies.”

Varo has been in talks with regulators for months, Brauer Gillsaid, and still has to go through a preapproval process, whichcould take between three and six months. From there, Varo wouldhave a year to begin setting up its national bank operations, sheexplained. “The process could take many months from here onout.”