General Motors plans to seek banking charter for auto-lending business, reports Wall Street Journal

General Motors Co is planning to apply for a banking charter that would allow its lending unit to hold deposits and expand its auto-finance business, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The automaker's finance arm, General Motors Financial Company Inc, has been talking to federal and state banking regulators for months about forming an industrial loan company and could file its applications as early as December, the report said .

"Industrial Loan Company" charters allow non-banks to originate loans and collect insured deposits.

GM did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.