The Federal Reserve Board announced on August 8 the creation of the Novel Activities Supervision Program, a major initiative designed to oversee complex and rapidly evolving technologies within the banking industry, including those related to crypto assets and blockchain technology .
In an important step toward aligning financial innovation with regulatory oversight, the program will promote the benefits of technology-driven financial advancements while appropriately addressing risks to preserve the safety and soundness of the U.S. banking system. This decision reflects the Federal Reserve’s efforts to adapt to an evolving financial landscape in which non-banks and emerging technologies play an increasingly important role.
Balancing risk
The New Business Oversight Program, described in SR 23-7, will focus on complex partnerships with non-banks to provide banking services, crypto-asset-related activities, distributed ledger technology, and concentrated delivery of banking services to crypto-asset-related entities and fintechs. The program works within existing oversight processes and improves and strengthens oversight without imposing unnecessary burdens.
In conjunction with the new activity oversight program, the council has also provided guidance on the process for state-owned banks supervised by the Federal Reserve to participate in specific dollar token or stablecoin activities. State-owned banks wishing to issue, hold or trade dollar tokens must demonstrate sufficient controls to safely conduct the activity.
Today’s guidance focuses on several risk factors, including operational and cybersecurity risks, liquidity issues, anti-money laundering compliance, and consumer protection statute compliance. This follows the board’s policy statement from January, which promotes a level playing field for federally supervised banks and builds on their continued efforts to provide clarity for all parties as the financial services industry evolves.
The announcement highlighted the Fed’s commitment to facilitating innovation while maintaining a robust regulatory framework. The oversight program aims to oversee activities that may not be adequately addressed by existing oversight approaches and raise concerns for the wider financial system.
To ensure the program remains current and practical, it will collaborate with external experts from academia, banking, finance and technology, integrating insights from real-time data, market monitoring and regular information exchange.