OCC Proposes Regulatory Changes to Give Banking Services to Crypto Firms
It is believed that with the new regulatory changes, the national banks' ability to deny giving financial services to crypto firms is reduced to a great extent. However, there is a limitation to the firms that are unable to fulfill the quantitative or risk-based criteria.
Banks Obligation Removed as OCC Proposes Regulatory Changes
This is going to be a huge relief for the crypto and money services business. Eventually, there will be fair access to financial services for all such businesses out there. According to the statement released by OCC:
“OCC has repeatedly stated that while banks are not obligated to offer any particular financial service to their customers, they must make the services they do offer available to all customers except to the extent that risk factors particular to an individual customer dictate otherwise.”
The regulatory changes proposed by OCC also states that banks need to apply the risk assessments to all the businesses, irrespective of their category. A complete report has been compiled by OCC in which businesses from different categories were not receiving any kind of financial services from the bank.
Lack of Access to Banking Services Affected Widespread Adoption
Marco Santori, Chief Legal Officer at Kraken, has said that due to limited access to banking services, there had been a major impact on widespread crypto adoption. Now as OCC proposes regulatory changes, the banks are now entitled to provide financial services to their customers if they pass the criteria. This also includes all the money services businesses and if they pass the criteria, the bank cannot deny them financial services. Such a major change is also going to compliment the widespread crypto adoption.
