Basel Committee crypto-asset prudential treatment proposals get detailed responses

The comment period has ended for the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s (BCBS) “Second Consultation on the Prudential Treatment of Cryptoasset Exposures,” a document published in June 2022.

International financial associations had a lot to say in response, and several did so at once in a joint 84-page comment letter released on Oct. 4. In addition, there were a few lone voices, although they did not differ significantly in content from the conclusions made by the joint associations.

All the commenters had the same basic message. Richard Gray, director of regulatory affairs at the Institute of International Finance (IIF), spoke on behalf of the joint associations working group that participated in the response letter and summed up the response when he told Cointelegraph in a statement:

“Banks are already experts at risk management and consumer protection.”

Some features and calibrations in the Second Consultation, according to the written response, “would meaningfully reduce banks’ ability to — and in some cases effectively preclude banks from — utilising the benefits of distributed ledger technology (‘DLT’) to perform certain traditional banking, financial intermediation and other financial functions more efficiently.”