The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the United States banking regulator, wants to bring together banks and crypto companies to assess how the two can interact and collaborate with each other. One of the possibilities is to sound out with banks the interest in acting as crypto custodians in the future. These alternatives were mentioned in an announcement by new OCC President, Brian Brooks, who was once legal director of exchange Coinbase.
“We don’t have an opinion on this and I don’t want to make a pre-trial about this possibility, but it’s certainly in my interest because of my past performance in the industry”, he told Cointelegraph. The executive also intends to analyze the role of stablecoins in the financial system.
The notice issued by the agency asks banks and crypto industry leaders to answer a series of questions. Those include: what cryptocurrency-related activities are financial services companies or bank customers involved in? Another one says: what are the barriers or obstacles to the future adoption of crypto-related activities in the banking sector?
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Brian Brooks described the announcement as an attempt to bridge the gap between finance and crypto. “Because the cryptocurrency regime needs banking services, we seek to know ways in which one can contribute to others”.
Banks like crypto custodians are just a layer of crypto regulations
Regulators in the U.S. and abroad have increasingly looked at the cryptoassets market. China, for example, already has a roadmap for issuing its own digital currency. The U.S. is adopting a series of measures tightening the siege against illegal operations to favor the adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. CVM, in Brazil, recently approved the crypto regulatory sandbox, which will allow greater innovation in this segment.
