US Federal Regulator - Banks Can Conduct Payments Using Stablecoins
Federally regulated banks can use stablecoins to conduct payments and other activities, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said Monday.
The federal banking regulator published an interpretive letter addressing whether national banks and federal savings associations could participate in independent node verification networks (INVNs, otherwise known as blockchain networks) or use stablecoins. The letter said that these financial institutions can participate as nodes on a blockchain and store or validate payments.
Any banks that do participate in an INVN must be aware of the operational, compliance or fraud risks when doing so, an OCC press release warned.
Still, the OCC said INVNs “may be more resilient than other payment networks” due to the large number of nodes needed to verify transactions, which can in turn limit tampering.
Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, said on Twitter that “the letter states that blockchains have the same status as other global financial networks, such as SWIFT, ACH, and FedWire.”
Brian Brooks, the Acting Comptroller of the Currency, said in a statement that while other nations have built real-time payments systems, the U.S. “has relied on” the private sector to create such technologies, seemingly endorsing the use of cryptocurrencies – specifically stablecoins – as an alternative to other real-time payment systems.
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