July 2020 – FinTech and Blockchain Law Watch

The OCC Tells Cryptocurrency Holders to Take It to the Bank: National Banks and FSAs Can Now (Definitively) Provide Custodial Services for Cryptocurrency

Jul 29 2020

By Judith Rinearson, Jeremy McLaughlin, and Daniel Cohen

On 22 July, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued an interpretive letter confirming that national banks and federal savings associations (collectively, banks) can offer custodial services for cryptoassets because “providing cryptocurrency custody services…is a modern form of traditional bank activities related to custody services.”

FATF report to the G20 on stablecoins

Jul 14 2020

By Giovanni Campi

Stablecoins have attracted much regulatory attention lately. The G7 working group on stablecoins, the International Organization of Securities Commissions, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the European Commission are among the international institutions pressing for global stablecoins regulation. The overarching regulatory problems they all identify are:

New EU digital finance rules by the end of 2020

Jul 09 2020

By Giovanni Campi

In a recent address on digital finance in the context of the European Commission’s Digital Finance Outreach, European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, shared some of the Commission’s thinking on technological innovation and digital finance.

It’s BA-ACK! OCC planning a new fintech charter: “Payments Charter 1.0”

Jul 06 2020

By Judie Rinearson and Mehreen Ahmed

On June 25, 2020, Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks announced in an American Bankers Association’s podcast that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”) is planning to introduce “Payments Charter 1.0”, which would effectively be a “national version of a state money transmission license.”

Archive:July 2020