The United States Conference of State Bank Supervisors, also known as CSBS, approved a set of regulations for payment companies and cryptocurrency companies that will apply in 49 states in the country.
The United States has been active in the creation and implementation of new rules and regulations that regulate the operations and services provided by different financial entities, including those for services with cryptocurrencies, and digital assets. Therefore, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) of the United States announced the approval of a new regulatory regime applicable to all those companies that provide monetary, financial and custody services for assets and cryptocurrencies. The new set of rules will apply in 49 states in the country including Puerto Rico and Columbia, with the exception of the state of Montana. Likewise, these regulations will apply to a total of 78 large payment and cryptocurrency companies and companies that operate throughout the country, and that move more than 1 trillion dollars a year, according to the report.
With the new regulations, cryptocurrency financial services companies and businesses will be able to legally expand throughout the United States. In addition, it is expected that this new set of rules will also minimize compliance costs for the country's regulators and reduce the workload for each particular state, who will now be able to work as a team by sharing information, streamlining and simplifying all the processes.
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Efficiency, transparency and security in the new model
In the report, a CSBS spokesperson stated that all states that regulate financial services providers and money transmitters will be fully involved to ensure compliance with these new regulations. Likewise, the spokesperson highlighted that this set of regulations aims to guarantee that financial services and products are provided with absolute transparency, efficiency and reliability, to minimize and avoid the incidence of illegal activities such as money laundering.
For its part, the organization is also focused on enforcing regulations that guarantee the protection and security of systems, to avoid malicious attacks that put the funds managed by payment and cryptocurrency companies at risk. Likewise, the CSBS spokesperson pointed out that companies that provide these financial services must be licensed in more than 40 states in the country to be included in the new regulations.
MSB Network Monitoring
The new regulations will be applied under the “MSB Network Supervision” which seeks to ensure the application of regulations to 78 of the largest and most important payment and cryptocurrency companies in the country. To achieve this, payments companies nationwide will undergo a “single comprehensive review to satisfy all state regulatory requirements,” the report states. Now all payment companies, including Western Union y Paypal, and cryptocurrency and digital asset companies will have to pass a single exam to qualify, rather than subjecting themselves to different rules in each state.
“The single exam will be conducted by a state that will supervise a group of examiners from across the country. By relying on experts across the state system, including in cybersecurity and anti-money laundering, regulators will gain more information while freeing up state resources.”
With this initiative, states are not expected to renounce their right as an authority, but rather to reduce the operational burden and costs of dealing with different regulations for each territory or jurisdiction. An example of this are the statements made by Rosemary Gallagher, Associate General Counsel of Western Union, who stated that Western Union proudly participated in this pilot project.
“We firmly believe that the impact of this new approach to multi-state examinations will be significant in terms of driving harmonization and streamlining of state oversight across the board.”
About CSBS
The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) is a national organization made up of banking regulators from the 50 states of the United States, including American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. This organization supervises 79% of the banks that exist in the United States.
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