ICBA attends White House meeting on digital assets

ICBA and other groups met with administration officials at the White House to discuss concerns with digital assets market structure legislation.

Details: Following the meeting, which was also attended by digital assets industry representatives, ICBA and other banking groups said in a national news release that any legislation must support local lending to families and small businesses, which drives economic growth and protects the safety and soundness of the financial system.

Digital Assets Legislation Developments:

• ICBA continues working with lawmakers to ensure the Senate Banking Committee's CLARITY Act explicitly bars crypto exchanges, affiliates, and other intermediaries from paying interest, yield, or rewards on payment stablecoin holdings.

• The Senate Agriculture Committee last week voted to advance the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act without bipartisan support or the inclusion of the ICBA-opposed Credit Card Competition Act. The bill must eventually be merged with the Senate Banking Committee's proposal and will need 60 votes to pass the full Senate.

• The Senate Banking Committee has yet to mark up its proposal establishing the Securities and Exchange Commission's oversight role over crypto assets.

Real-World Data: A recently released ICBA data analysis shows allowing crypto intermediaries to pay interest or yield on payment stablecoin holdings could reduce community bank lending by $850 billion due to a $1.3 trillion reduction in the industry’s deposits.

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