US – Page 7 – FinTech and Blockchain Law Watch

SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee Talks DLT, Blockchain

Oct 18 2017

On October 12, the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee (IAC) held a public meeting that included a panel discussion about blockchain and other Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The IAC advises the SEC on such regulatory issues as investor protection and securities market integrity.

The panel consisted of Nancy Liao of Yale Law School; Jeff Bandman, Principal at Bandman Advisors and previously Director of LabCFTC; Michael Bodson, President and CEO of DTCC; Fredrik Voss, Vice President of Blockchain Innovation at Nasdaq; and Adam Ludwin, Co-founder and CEO of Chain. Panelists largely focused on the potential benefits of blockchain and DLT for investors and the broader U.S. securities markets, as well as the accompanying risks that will likely require heightened regulatory oversight.

Meet us at Money20/20!

Oct 12 2017

K&L Gates is excited to be a part of Money20/20, the largest global event focused on payments and financial services innovation! Join us from October 22nd – 24th in Las Vegas, U.S.

We have several exciting events and programs taking place during the conference.

Federal Reserve Board outlines next steps for faster payments

Oct 11 2017

By Eric A. Love

The Federal Reserve Board (FRB) has released a paper entitled “Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System: Next Steps in the Payments Improvement Journey” (the Strategies Paper). The Strategies Paper builds upon the FRB’s “first steps” for enhancing the U.S. payment system (which were described in a 2015 FRB paper) and details the next phase of this work. It includes an assessment of ambitious proposals made by the Faster Payments Task Force and the Secure Payments Task Force.

Faster Payments Task Force issues Part Two of Final Faster Payments Report

Aug 29 2017

By Eric A. Love and Judith Rinearson

The Faster Payments Task Force (the Task Force) has issued part two of its Final Report that sets forth a blueprint for achieving faster and more secure payments in the U.S. by 2020.

Convened by the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) and comprised of a broad cross-section of over 300 industry, government and consumer group stakeholders, the Task Force released part one of its Final Report in January 2017 which outlined the Task Force’s goals and the many advantages of faster payments. Instead of championing a single method to achieving “ubiquitous faster payments,” the Task Force states in part two that it favors competition among a wide array of potential ways to achieve this goal and supports collaboration with industry stakeholders to ensure “broad adoption; safety, integrity and trust; and interoperability.”

Better late than never to the FinTech party

Aug 17 2017

By Cameron Abbott and Olivia Coburn

Oracle has finally realised that it wants to hang out with the cool FinTech kids on the block, having recently announced the release of its Oracle Banking Payments application programming interface (API) service.

Oracle’s move recognises the value of offering better ways for its banking clients to collaborate with FinTechs and other third parties.

Bitcoin thieves abound, but Law Enforcement is getting smart and stepping up

Aug 06 2017

By Clifford Histed and Nicole Mueller

According to a federal criminal complaint filed last month in Philadelphia, Theodore Price admitted that he had written software capable of stealing millions of dollars in bitcoins from individual bitcoin wallets. He allegedly admitted to purchasing the software on a dark net market and recoding it to infiltrate e-mail accounts with bitcoin wallets. Price also allegedly admitted that he had a fake passport in the name of the actor Jeremy Renner, and that Price had prepared to flee the U.S. on a private jet to evade arrest. Price is now in federal custody, charged with access device fraud and identity theft.

OCC Acting Comptroller Noreika’s Recent Remarks on FinTech Charter

Aug 02 2017

By Yuki Sako, Peter Nelson and Elizabeth Nelli

On July 19, 2017, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Acting Comptroller Noreika stated that special-purpose national bank charter is a “good idea that deserves thorough analysis and careful consideration.” He thinks that, despite the pending lawsuits filed by state bank regulators to challenge, the OCC has the authority to grant national bank charters to fintech companies in appropriate circumstances.

U.S. SEC issues report on digital currencies and related autonomous organizations

Jul 31 2017

By C. Todd Gibson and Evan Glover

On July 25th the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) released a report to put the market on notice that offers and sales of digital assets are subject to the requirements of the federal securities laws.

The report is a result of an investigation of a German created entity called The DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization), which is a virtual organization that exists within computer code and is executed on a blockchain or decentralized ledger. The DAO sold DAO Tokens, which had characteristics similar to stock (e.g. certain ownership and voting rights), with the intent to raise funds to finance various projects. The DAO Tokens were purchased using a digital currency and could be monetized by re-selling the token on a web-based platform that supported a secondary market. The DAO engaged in these offers and sales in the U.S. despite not registering with the SEC.

New York moves money transmitters to NMLS

Jul 13 2017

By Jeremy McLaughlin and Judith Rinearson

As of July 1, 2017, the New York Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) is using the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System and Registry (“NMLS”) to manage license applications and conduct ongoing regulation of nondepository financial institutions, including money transmitters, doing business in New York. The NMLS website is available here.

The decision by DFS should bring some additional ease to an otherwise cumbersome state-by-state money transmitter licensing regime. Applicants applying for a license in the NMLS system need only fill out a single set of applications for all states that participate (although, of course, individual state licensing requirements still differ). Money transmitters already licensed in New York will be able to transition their licenses to the NMLS system. In a June 29, 2017 press release, available here, DFS stated it had sent letters to each licensee providing detailed instructions on how to accomplish the transition.

DFS has lauded the move to NMLS as bringing efficiency to its regulatory oversight responsibilities, including enhanced consumer protection. According to a May 11, 2017 DFS press release, the move to NMLS will “allow DFS to provide better supervision of the money transmitter industry by linking with other states to protect consumers.”

RegTech: A U.S. regulator’s view on artificial intelligence in risk assessment

Jun 29 2017

By C. Todd Gibson and Evan Glover

On 21 June at the OpRisk North America 2017 conference in New York, Scott W. Bauguess, Acting Director and Acting Chief Economist of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (“DERA”) gave a keynote speech on the use of artificial intelligence by regulators. A transcript of the speech can be found here. Bauguess provided some interesting background on the utility and use of big data and machine learning at the SEC to identify potential misconduct by market participants and investment managers, and the emerging use of artificial intelligence.

Bauguess’ speech discussed the SEC’s use of AI in its regulatory framework, initially discussing machine learning. The SEC currently applies topic modeling methods, such as Latent Dilchlet Allocation (“LDA”). LDA reviews text-based documents (e.g., registration disclosures) and reports on where, and to what extent, particular words appear in each document. This occurs either by: analyzing the probability of words across documents, and within documents, to define the topics they represent (“unsupervised learning”); or incorporating human judgement and direction into the programming of the machine’s algorithms (“supervised learning”).

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