The following is a summary of Fintech specific related topics, for the Blockchain Week in Review, please visit our sister blog post at the Virtual Currency Report.
State Bank Regulators and NYDFS to renew litigation against OCC
On September 12, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (“CSBS”) announced that it would renew litigation efforts in opposition to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (“OCC”) decision to accept applications from financial technology firms for a special purpose national bank (“SPNB”) charter. A D.C. federal district court dismissed the CSBS’ first lawsuit on April 30, 2018 for failure to establish injury as the OCC had not yet determined if it would offer such a charter. In July of this year, the OCC said it would offer SPNB charters to fintech firms and it was announced earlier this month that Varo Money had received preliminary approval for the first SPNB charter. In the initial lawsuit, the CBS argued that the OCC”s 2017 proposal exceeded the authority granted to the OCC by Congress under the National Bank Act (“NBA”) and other federal banking laws to charter institutions that engage in banking. New York’s Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”) filed a lawsuit against the OCC in federal court in Manhattan on September 14, 2018 alleging similar claims against the OCC of overstepping its authority in creating a charter.
The above is a summary of one of the significant legal and regulatory actions that occurred over the past week. This alert is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all such developments, but rather a selection of publicly-reported news that may be of particular interest. These are the Fintech updates that ties to the post Blockchain in Review – Week of September 10-17, 2018 from our sister blog, VirtualCurrencyReport.