The U.S. Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money, which regulates nationwide banks, has continued its about-face to earlier resistance to cryptocurrency in banking, issuing interpretive letters that say the establishments can — at their prospects’ behest — purchase and promote crypto property in custody.
The newly defined coverage stance launched by the OCC on Wednesday additionally clarified that the bankers can outsource crypto actions to 3rd events, together with custody and government providers. So long as all of it nonetheless checks the bins of the watchdog’s safety-and-soundness necessities, the OCC is giving the banks extra crypto freedom.
This week’s transfer follows the company’s March reversal of a longstanding coverage that demanded bankers verify with their authorities supervisors earlier than shifting forward with new crypto enterprise. “These letters sign a shift within the OCC’s strategy,” Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Starkware normal counsel and a former chief authorized officer at Cboe Digital, famous on social media website X. She stated the company now appears to be melding crypto into conventional banking. And the extra steerage that third-parties are okay “is a boon to regulated crypto native service suppliers.”
Learn Extra: OCC Says Banks Can Interact in Crypto Custody and Sure Stablecoin Actions