By Jeremy McLaughlin and Judie Rinearson
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently announced settlements with two remittance transfer providers for violations of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA) and the Remittance Rule, part of the regulation that implements the EFTA—an area in which there isn’t typically much CFPB enforcement activity.
Read MoreBy 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.”
Read MoreStablecoins 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:
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreBy 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.”
Read MoreBy: Jeremy McLaughlin and Daniel Cohen
It’s no secret that accessing the New York market is difficult, if not impossible, for some digital asset companies, especially those in their early stages. New York’s Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) is hoping to change that—at least incrementally—with several initiatives it recently announced. Our digital asset team will soon provide a detailed analysis of the initiatives, but in the meantime here is a brief summary:
Read MoreBy Judie Rinearson, John ReVeal and Stan Ragalevsky
The office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) on June 3, 2020, focusing on digital banking activities. Typically such ANPRs are a precursor to new federal regulation; following collection of data from the industry and other interested parties, the OCC may propose new regulations by issuing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking within 6-12 months. Responses to the ANPR are due on August 3, 2020.
Read MoreJohn ReVeal and Judie Rinearson
On May 29, 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) issued a final rule (https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/federal-register/2020/nr-occ-2020-71a.pdf) to clarify that, when a federal or state-chartered savings association transfers a loan portfolio, interest permissible on the loans before the transfer continues to be permissible after the transfer. In this way, the OCC hopes to resolve the uncertainty created by the Madden v. Midland Funding, LLC decision (“Madden”).
Read MoreBy Giovanni Campi and Sofia Karagianni
The digitalization of finance is accelerating during the COVID-19 outbreak. Even before the pandemic, FinTechs and BigTechs had begun to change market dynamics by offering new forms of money and new means of payment. Central banks are also looking into the future of money and payments, and at the potential issuance of digital currencies.
Read MoreBy Giovanni Campi and Sofia Karagianni
The Financial Stability Board (FSB) issued a consultation on a toolkit of measures designed to help ensure firms and regulators are well prepared to tackle cyber incidents. This consultation is part of the work initiated in 2017 following the launch of the FSB report gathering financial sector cybersecurity regulations, guidance and supervisory practices from several jurisdictions. The consultation is expected to lead to the submission of the toolkit to the G20 in October 2020.
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