Senate panel advances digital assets bill without credit card routing amendment

The Senate Agriculture Committee voted 12-11 to advance the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act without bipartisan support or the inclusion of the ICBA-opposed Credit Card Competition Act.

Details: This bill is the Senate Agriculture Committee's piece of digital assets market structure legislation and would provide new authority to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to regulate digital commodities. The bill must eventually be merged with the Senate Banking Committee's proposal and will need 60 votes to pass the full Senate.

Senate Banking Committee Debate: The Senate Banking Committee has yet to mark up its proposal establishing the Securities and Exchange Commission's oversight role over crypto assets. ICBA continues working with lawmakers to ensure the Banking Committee's CLARITY Act explicitly bars crypto exchanges, affiliates, and other intermediaries from paying interest, yield, or rewards on payment stablecoin holdings.

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.

Durbin-Marshall Amendment Not Included: The committee advanced the bill without the inclusion of ICBA-opposed legislation to implement credit card routing restrictions. Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) filed a modified version of the ICBA-opposed Credit Card Competition Act as a proposed amendment last week, they but decided not to offer it during the markup after facing opposition by the banking industry and leadership. ICBA and other groups last week urged Congress to reject the legislation in any form.