OCC Wants to End Banks' Discrimination of Disfavored Businesses Including Crypto

[The cure]

OCC Wants to End Banks' Discrimination of Disfavored Businesses Including Crypto Companies.

The OCC is proposing a rule change that compels large U.S. banks to offer and provide fair access to financial services to anyone that wants them. The proposition seeks to clarify the obligation of large banks to provide fair access to financial services in a manner consistent with the Dodd-Frank Act’s mandate.

Discrimination Against Disfavored Businesses
The Dodd-Frank Act already recognizes a broad and longstanding anti-discrimination principle that individuals are entitled to be treated fairly by national banks. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) proposed rule change now seeks to end the persistent discrimination against “disfavored” businesses like crypto companies. The OCC action would have the force and effect of law and enable the agency to take supervisory or enforcement action, when appropriate.
See full article https://news.bitcoin.com/occ-wants-to-end-banks-discrimination-of-disfavored-businesses-including-crypto-companies/.

[Oshosondy]

This will be a good approach in a way it will be getting near for bitcoin ETF to become reality, and also will increase crypto adoption, but not good approach yet towards continuing decentralization of cryptocurrencies as we noticed the more they are adopted, the more centralized they are becoming.

[avikz]

Probably a good approach for the new startups who are in dire need of cash for their businesses. Usually crypto companies are deprived of banking service in many countries around the world. Even in my country, the Central Bank had issued a circular stating that Banks can freeze the accounts of the crypto companies and are not liable to provide any service to them. In view of that, such kind of positive step towards inclusion of the crypto companies, will surely get some good result from the innovation perspective.

Hopefully other countries will also take such steps to ensure that crypto companies are not deprived of banking services!

[stompix]

Here is the official paper:
https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-issuances/federal-register/2020/nr-occ-2020-156a.pdf
If somebody is interested there isn't a single mention of the word cryptocurrency or bitcoin in it but two pages about oil and gas.

And the end shows that this is more like a recommendation:

Furthermore, under the proposal, a covered bank could deny a person access to a financial service without violating its obligation to provide fair access to financial services if the bank’s decision is justified by the quantified and documented failure of the person to meet quantitative, impartial risk-based standards established by the bank in advance (e.g., the person’s inability to pay for the service or creditworthiness or an objective assessment of the person’s collateral).

Nothing in the proposal would require a bank to offer a particular service; the proposal requires only that the financial services offered by a bank to some customers are offered on proportionally equal terms to all customers engaged in lawful activities.

Guess some business group is lobbying hard for this, and all those references to oil and energy make me wonder if this is not some kind of lobby from the already cash-striped shale gas sector that is in desperate need of loans with the price stagnating at 40$ for almost a year.

[Walterhank]

Very glad to see news like this. This will bring a whole new level of adoption and the industry will grow as a whole. Sure wide adoption will take some time but this is a good start towards that future.

[Lorence.xD]

Very glad to see news like this. This will bring a whole new level of adoption and the industry will grow as a whole. Sure wide adoption will take some time but this is a good start towards that future.

It might be a good thing but consider what happens when there are a lot of start ups that will start pouring in when it becomes a regulation. They can't handle that influx and they can't discriminate because they need to follow the regulation, the Congress might find a way to this solution but I think what they are curing is not the disease but the symptoms. I do not think that money is the only thing that a crypto business or small business needs, there are more better things than giving them loans like insurances and business protection or reduced business requirements or tax cuts.

[Husires]

I think it is part of the motivation for what will happen in the next year to try for individuals to obtain more financing and spend their money, where the encouragement for growth and return after the end of the pandemic is fast.
If this is decided, this does not mean that people will build cryptography. Many people do not know about digital currencies and do not think they have the luxury to invest.
Maybe the companies will go.