All Things FinReg

Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the new UK government led by Prime Minister Liz Truss, presented his “Growth Plan 2022” to Parliament on 23 September 2022. The Growth Plan 2022 outlines the UK government’s plans to tackle inflation, the cost of living, and energy crises and expand the supply side of the economy. In particular, the chancellor announced new measures to unlock investment by UK pensions schemes in private assets.

New cryptocurrency legislation awaits California Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature after passing the California Assembly on August 30, 2022. If signed into law, California’s Digital Financial Assets Law would create sweeping requirements that, among other things, would mandate that digital asset exchanges and crypto companies obtain licenses to operate within the State of California, but not until January 2025, as described in more detail below. Many observers have compared the new California legislation to New York State’s BitLicense regulation, which was adopted in 2015.

As of August 11, 2022, approval is now required by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) before acquiring direct or indirect control of an FCA-registered cryptoasset business. Failure to attain such approval is a criminal offense. This is due to the UK Money Laundering Regulations (MLRs) having been updated to apply the change in control regime under Part 12 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), as modified by Schedule 6B of the updated MLRs, to FCA-registered cryptoasset exchange providers and custodian wallet providers.

In a series of recent interviews (including with the American Bankers Association and a podcast with the ABA Banking Journal), Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks discussed the Office of the Comptroller’s (OCC’s) plans to soon roll out another special purpose national bank (SPNB) charter specifically geared toward payments companies.

The virtual currency Bitcoin has been a hot topic in FinReg for some time, but in recent weeks mainstream interest in Bitcoin has grown in light of the approaching “halving” or “halvening.” So what is the “halvening” and why does it matter from a regulatory perspective?