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Farooq Malik spent almost six years at the North American Development Bank financing solar and wind projects, then ran its bond issuance as treasurer (Jolly backer profile). On 5 October 2026 the company he co-founded, Rain, filed with the OCC to open Rain National Trust Bank in New York (Rain).
That filing is the newest step in a fast climb. Rain raised a $250 million Series C at a $1.95 billion valuation in January 2026, bringing total funding to more than $338 million (Rain Series C release).
This founder profile maps Farooq Malik Rain from development banking to Visa principal membership, three funding rounds in ten months, and the trust bank application, plus Stablecoin Insider's take on whether a card issuer should become a stablecoin issuer of record.
Key Takeaways
- Farooq Malik is co-founder and CEO of Rain, which he started with CTO Charles Yoo-Naut in 2021 (Rain media kit).
- Before Rain he was NADB treasurer and investment officer from April 2017 to April 2019, after four years in project finance there (Jolly).
- Rain raised $24.5 million, $58 million and $250 million across its Series A, B and C between March 2025 and January 2026 (Rain Series B; Rain Series C).
- Rain says active cards grew 30x and annualized payment volume grew 38x to more than $3 billion in the year before its Series C (Rain).
- Rain National Trust Bank would handle custody, reserve management and stablecoin issuance, but no deposits, consumer accounts or loans (Rain).
Who Farooq Malik is
Malik is not a crypto native by background. On the Fintech One-on-One podcast he described his path as international development banking focused on infrastructure, private equity in frontier markets, and an early career in strategy consulting and investment banking (Fintech One-on-One).
His profile lists Accenture, Lehman Brothers, Booz Allen Hamilton and NTELX Infrastructure before he joined the North American Development Bank as a project finance officer in August 2013 (Jolly). He became NADB's treasurer and investment officer in April 2017, where he ran bond issuance and built its green bond program.
He studied economics and humanities at the University of Texas at Austin and earned an MSc in Globalization and Development at SOAS University of London (Jolly).
The Generalist frames the personal motive more directly. Malik grew up in an immigrant family and watched the friction of moving money across borders up close, and he met his co-founder Charles Yoo-Naut through the On Deck founder fellowship (The Generalist).
That mix matters. A treasurer spends the day reconciling money in and money out, and that is exactly the pain Malik says stablecoins removed for him.
The side project that became Rain
Rain did not start as a stablecoin company. Malik told Fintech One-on-One that he and his co-founder first built a startup fundraising tool, a checkout link on top of SAFE notes connected to ACH and wire rails (Fintech One-on-One).
Then a customer asked whether an investor could fund in stablecoins. When the first stablecoin transaction settled on their product, Malik said it felt 10x better than ACH, with near-instant finality and instant reconciliation, and it reminded him of the bank teams whose whole job was daily reconciliation (Fintech One-on-One).
That "aha moment" became the company. Rain's media kit dates the founding to 2021 and says the first product, in 2022, was stablecoin-backed corporate spend cards (Rain media kit). Fortune reported that Rain raised $6 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners in 2022 to launch corporate credit cards for DAOs such as Uniswap (Fortune).
Farooq Malik career timeline
The table below pulls every dated step from Malik's public profile and Rain's own releases. Company growth figures are Rain's own, not audited numbers.
| Date | Milestone | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 to 2007 | Strategy analyst at Accenture after UT Austin (economics, humanities) | Jolly |
| 2007 to 2008 | MSc Globalization and Development, SOAS; associate at Lehman Brothers in 2008 | Jolly |
| 2009 to 2012 | Senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, then senior associate at NTELX Infrastructure | Jolly |
| Aug 2013 to Apr 2019 | NADB project finance officer, then treasurer and investment officer (bond issuance, green bond program) | Jolly |
| Apr to Nov 2019 | Marshall Memorial Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States | Jolly |
| 2021 | Co-founds Rain with Charles Yoo-Naut; profile lists CEO role from November 2021 | Rain media kit; Jolly |
| 2022 | Launches stablecoin-backed corporate spend cards; $6 million from Lightspeed | Rain; Fortune |
| 24 Mar 2025 | $24.5 million Series A led by Norwest; Visa principal membership announced; 15x growth in 12 months | Rain; Fortune |
| 28 Aug 2025 | $58 million Series B led by Sapphire Ventures; total funding $88.5 million | Rain via PR Newswire |
| 9 Jan 2026 | $250 million Series C led by ICONIQ at a $1.95 billion valuation; total above $338 million | Rain via PR Newswire |
| 2026 | Becomes a Mastercard Principal Member; launches the Agent Control Layer | Rain media kit |
| 12 Aug 2026 | Acquires Ansa, a branded stored value and closed-loop payments platform | Rain |
| 18 Aug 2026 | Launches the Agentic Payments Alliance with founding members including Visa, Mastercard, Fiserv, Circle, Solana and Remitly | Rain |
| 10 Sep 2026 | MoneyGram Card goes live on Rain | Rain |
| 5 Oct 2026 | Files OCC application for Rain National Trust Bank; Brandon Soto named proposed President and CEO | Rain; PR Newswire |
Three rounds in ten months: how Rain scaled
Rain's fundraising pace is the headline most competitor pages lead with. The Series A in March 2025 raised $24.5 million led by Norwest, and Rain said it had grown more than 15x in the prior twelve months with transactions in over 100 countries (Rain Series A).
Five months later, the $58 million Series B led by Sapphire Ventures took total funding to $88.5 million. Rain said transaction volume had grown 10x since January 2025 and that it had processed millions of transactions across 150+ countries (Rain Series B).
The Series C in January 2026 was the big step: $250 million led by ICONIQ at a $1.95 billion valuation (Rain Series C). Rain said it facilitated more than $3 billion in annualized transactions for over 200 partners, including Western Union, Nuvei and KAST. Stablecoin Insider covered the round at the time in its Rain Series C news report.
Here's why that matters for a founder profile. Norwest wrote that it backed Rain at seed "when the company was just an idea and a Notion doc" (Norwest). Repeat insiders kept doubling down, which is a stronger signal than a single headline valuation.
Why Malik started with cards
Most stablecoin startups start with a wallet or a token. Malik started with the hardest plumbing in consumer payments. In a conversation hosted by PYMNTS, he gave two reasons: you can pay for most things with a card, and card payments are "enormously complex" across authorization and settlement (Rain / PYMNTS).
That choice meant handling chargebacks, refunds and disputes inside Rain's own account and authorization stack, so a stablecoin card carries the same protections as any other payment card (Rain / PYMNTS). Rain also says it was the first company to settle Visa transactions using stablecoins seven days a week, including weekends and holidays (Rain).
On the Leaders in Payments podcast, Malik described support for dozens of stablecoins on 11 blockchains and a margin-backed credit card design that cut working capital needs by about 80% (Leaders in Payments).
If you run a card program, that last number is the one to test. Working capital is the cost that usually kills new issuers, and Rain's pitch is that daily onchain settlement shrinks it.
The 2026 product sprint: payouts, stored value and agents
Malik spent 2026 widening Rain from cards into the rest of the money flow. Rain says Global Payouts now lets partners pay recipients in 50 currencies across more than 80 countries from a single stablecoin balance, with a locked quote before funding (Rain).
In August, Rain bought Ansa, a branded stored value platform, and Ansa founder Sophia Goldberg joined as Head of Payments (Rain). The same month it launched the Agentic Payments Alliance with more than 25 members, citing a McKinsey projection of $3 trillion to $5 trillion in agentic commerce by 2030 (Rain).
The clearest real-world proof is MoneyGram. The MoneyGram Card went live on Rain on 10 September 2026, and Rain says MoneyGram serves 60 million+ active users and is on pace to run roughly $3 billion of FX trading through stablecoins a year (Rain). Stablecoin Insider covered the launch in its MoneyGram stablecoin Visa card report.
Rain National Trust Bank: what Malik filed for
On 5 October 2026, Rain filed an application with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Rain National Trust Bank, headquartered in New York (PR Newswire). If approved, it would run three lines of business: fiduciary custody of digital assets and US dollars, reserve management for permitted stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS Act, and issuance and redemption of US dollar-backed stablecoins as issuer of record (Rain).
The limits are as important as the powers. As an uninsured national trust bank, it would not accept deposits, offer consumer accounts or make commercial loans, and reserves backing any stablecoin it issues would not be pledged, lent or reused (Rain).
Malik's own explanation is short: "The institutions building on Rain want the assets behind their programs held by a fiduciary that answers to a federal regulator." Rain says it remains a payments platform and a Visa and Mastercard Principal Member through other subsidiaries (Rain).
The proposed CEO is not Malik. Brandon Soto, most recently EVP and CFO of Coastal Financial Corporation and earlier CFO of Square Financial Services, would lead the bank, subject to OCC review (Rain). Rain worked with Paul Hastings on the application.
For market context on how charters, GENIUS Act rules and bank-issued dollars reshaped the quarter, see Stablecoin Insider's Q3 2026 stablecoin report. Rain joins a queue that already includes Circle's final OCC trust bank approval, World Liberty's conditional approval and the September wave that covered Agora and Catena Labs.
Rain vs Agora: two founders, two trust bank plays
Agora is the cleanest comparison because its charter file is public. The OCC granted Agora National Trust Bank preliminary conditional approval on 18 September 2026, with a minimum of $10 million in tier 1 capital and deadlines of 12 months to raise capital and 18 months to open (OCC Corporate Decision 1393). Rain is one step behind: filed, not yet approved.
| Layer | Rain (payments platform) | Rain National Trust Bank (proposed) | Agora National Trust Bank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core business today | Stablecoin card issuing, wallets, payouts via one API; Visa and Mastercard Principal Member (Rain) | Not a bank; payments platform stays separate (Rain) | AUSD stablecoin issuer and white-label platform (SCI profile) |
| Charter status | n/a | Application filed 5 Oct 2026; public comment period pending (PR Newswire) | Preliminary conditional approval 18 Sep 2026 (OCC) |
| Stablecoin role | Spends and routes third-party stablecoins | Issuer of record for US dollar-backed stablecoins, if approved (Rain) | Stablecoin issuance and reserve maintenance (OCC) |
| Custody | Third-party custodians and issuers today (Rain) | Fiduciary custody of digital assets and US dollars | Non-fiduciary digital asset custody (OCC) |
| Deposits and loans | Banking services via partner bank (Rain site) | No deposits, consumer accounts or commercial loans | Trust company operations only; institutional and business customers (OCC) |
| Bank CEO | Farooq Malik (Rain CEO) | Brandon Soto, proposed | Nick van Eck (OCC) |
The difference is direction. Van Eck started with a dollar and is adding distribution. Malik started with distribution (cards at 175M+ merchant locations, per Rain) and is adding the custody and issuance layer underneath.
The downside: what the trust bank filing does not solve
A filing is not a charter. Rain's application still needs OCC review and a public comment period, and Rain says the bank will only begin operations after all required approvals (Rain). Agora's file shows that even a yes comes with capital floors and opening deadlines (OCC CD 1393).
Growth figures are self-reported. The 30x card growth and 38x volume growth come from Rain's own Series C release, not audited filings (Rain). Treat them as directional until a regulator or auditor publishes comparable numbers.
Issuer of record can strain partner ties. Rain's partners today use third-party stablecoin issuers (Rain). If Rain's bank starts issuing its own dollar, some issuers that Rain routes today become competitors. That's a judgment, not a reported conflict, and it depends on how Rain prices issuance.
The bank is not the whole company. Card programs still depend on network principal memberships and partner institutions in each market, and Rain's own site says it is not a bank and its affiliates do not hold deposits (Rain). A trust charter covers custody and issuance, not every license a global card program needs.
Who should follow Rain closely (and who can skip it)
Follow Rain if you run a fintech, neobank, remittance app or marketplace that wants stablecoin cards or payouts without building issuing, settlement and compliance in-house. The MoneyGram and Western Union programs show the model works at remittance scale (Rain; Rain).
Watch the OCC docket if you are a stablecoin issuer that Rain routes today, or a treasury team that wants a federally supervised custodian behind card balances. Skip it if you need a consumer deposit account or credit line from the bank itself, because the proposed trust bank explicitly rules those out (Rain).
Stablecoin Insider's take for Monday: if you're evaluating Rain, ask for the custody chain behind your program today, the plan for moving it to Rain National Trust Bank, and what changes if the OCC says no. Compare that with how Jeremy Allaire took Circle through its charter, and read Stablecoin vs PayPal vs cards and Mastercard stablecoin pay in 2026 for the card side.
FAQ
Who is Farooq Malik?
Farooq Malik is the co-founder and CEO of Rain, a stablecoin card issuing and payments platform he started with Charles Yoo-Naut in 2021. Before Rain he was treasurer and investment officer at the North American Development Bank.
What does Rain do?
Rain lets companies launch stablecoin-powered cards, wallets and global payouts through one API. It is a Visa and Mastercard Principal Member and settles card transactions daily onchain.
Is Rain a bank?
No. Rain is a payments platform. It has applied to the OCC for a separate subsidiary, Rain National Trust Bank, which has not been approved.
What would Rain National Trust Bank do?
If approved, it would provide fiduciary custody of digital assets and US dollars, reserve management for permitted stablecoin issuers, and issuance and redemption of US dollar-backed stablecoins for institutional clients. It would not take deposits, offer consumer accounts or make commercial loans.
Who will run Rain National Trust Bank?
Brandon Soto is the proposed President and CEO, subject to OCC review. He was most recently CFO of Coastal Financial Corporation and earlier CFO of Square Financial Services.
How much has Rain raised?
More than $338 million in total. The latest round was a $250 million Series C led by ICONIQ in January 2026 at a $1.95 billion valuation.
How did Farooq Malik get into stablecoins?
Through a side project. He and his co-founder built a startup fundraising checkout tool on ACH and wire rails, and when an investor paid in stablecoins the instant settlement and reconciliation convinced him to build Rain.
Will Rain issue its own stablecoin?
Rain says the proposed trust bank would issue US dollar-backed stablecoins as issuer of record under the GENIUS Act, but only after OCC approval. No Rain-issued stablecoin exists today.
Want the peer charter story? Read Stablecoin Insider's Nick van Eck / Agora founder profile.
This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or tax advice; no material herein should be interpreted as a recommendation, endorsement, or solicitation to buy or sell any financial instrument, and readers should conduct their own independent research or consult a qualified professional before any decision to buy or sell.
