{"id":228268,"date":"2021-04-16T08:06:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T05:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/brian-brooks-defends-fintech-charter-to-house-financial-services-committee\/"},"modified":"2021-04-16T08:06:43","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T05:06:43","slug":"brian-brooks-defends-fintech-charter-to-house-financial-services-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/brian-brooks-defends-fintech-charter-to-house-financial-services-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"# Brian Brooks defends fintech charter to House Financial Services Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

“# Brian Brooks defends fintech charter to House Financial Services Committee <\/strong>”
\n<\/p>\n

Brian Brooks has defended the fintech banking charter introduced while he served as the acting comptroller of the currency after Congressional Democrats took aim at the license on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Brian app<\/a>eared as a witness before the House Financial Services Committee\u2019s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions at an April 15 hearing<\/a> titled, \u201cBanking Innovation or Regulatory Evasion? Exploring Trends in Financial Institution Charters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fintech charter was introduced by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, and overseen by Brooks in 2020, allowing financial technology<\/a> firms including cryptocurrency companies to offer lending and payment products without being overseen by state banking regulators, FDIC insurance, or deposits from customers.<\/p>\n

Californian representative and chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, Maxine Waters, claimed<\/a> that banks and state regulators have complained about the lack of regulatory scrutiny faced by fintech firms licensed under the charter:<\/p>\n

\u201cState regulators, community banks and credit unions have raised alarms about how new entities, including big tech firms, are receiving unconventional bank charters and offering bank products and services while evading regulations most banks, including community banks, must comply with.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Waters characterized the OCC of having \u201coverstepped its authority,\u201d accusing the office of \u201cpretending that laws signed by Abraham Lincoln were intended to create charters for fintech or cryptocurrency.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Brooks told the committee the charter had bolstered regulatory oversight of the fintech and crypto industries, arguing their activities would otherwise continue outside of regulators\u2019 view. <\/p>\n

Brooks described the charter as empowering firms that \u201cprovide consumers with better alternatives to traditional banks on the one hand and strip<\/a>-mall financiers, like payday lenders, on the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Democrats raised concerns that Bitcoin is primarily a vehicle for criminal syndicates, with California\u2019s Brad Sherman claiming the crypto asset is largely used by \u201ctax evaders\u201d and \u201cnarco-terrorists.\u201d Texas\u2019s Al Green also advanced what he said were his constituents\u2019 concerns regarding the prevalence of Ponzi schemes in the crypto sector.<\/p>\n

Brooks dismissed these worries, arguing that exclusionary regulations could hinder the United States\u2019 technological dynamism and that heavy-handed legislation could undermine U.S. soft power in the emerging digital economy:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re building a second Internet here \u2014 it\u2019s not built for terrorist financing, it\u2019s built to allow us to have a truly decentralized Internet. If you believe that America\u2019s soft power in the world has a lot to do with the fact that we control ICANN and the Internet Protocol, I think you would feel similarly about these new protocols.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n