The federal government began clearing a path on Tuesday for online lenders and payment companies to more easily and directly compete with traditional banks, a change that one regulator said would allow innovative businesses to expand nationwide.

Online lenders and other so-called fintech firms — including the payment processor Square, the online lender Lending Club and the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase — have pressed for regulatory routes that would let them cut through the thicket of state and federal laws that govern financial businesses.

Heeding those requests, the Treasury Department released a 222-page report laying out the Trump administration’s view on how nonbank financial companies should be regulated. Hours later, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a national bank regulator, announced a new kind of charter that would potentially free such companies from the state-by-state approvals they currently need to offer loans and other financial products.

The agency had been considering the idea of a national charter for more than two years. Joseph M. Otting, the comptroller of the currency, said his office would immediately begin accepting applications.