Are Bank Regulators Illegally Punishing Crypto Users?

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Washington DC Law Firm that Won Operation Choke Hold Suit, Gives Congress Advice

Are private digital assets, under unlawful attack by regulators? Sounds conspiratorial, but a D.C. law firm that successfully sued the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and Office of the Controller of the Currency (OCC), says they are doing just that. The firm Cooper & Kirk, won a large lawsuit dubbed against the agencies for their part in, “Operation Choke Point.”  That was a decade ago, the law firm now claims they have uncovered a coordinated campaign by bank regulators to drive crypto out of the U.S. financial system.

The new “Operation Choke Point 2.0,” according to the firms website, “have published informal guidance documents that single out cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency customers as a risk to the banking system.” According to an informational paper published by the D.C. firm, “businesses in the cryptocurrency marketplace are losing their bank accounts, or their access to the ACH network, suddenly, and with no explanation from their bankers, the paper continued, “the owners and employees of cryptocurrency firms are even having their personal accounts closed without explanation.”

As an example of could be viewed as overstepping their charters, the firm pointed out that, “over the past two weeks, federal regulators have shut down a solvent bank that was known to be serving the crypto industry and, although it is required to resolve banks through the “least cost resolution” to the Deposit Insurance Fund, the FDIC chose to shutter rather than sell the part of the bank that serves digital asset customers, costing the Fund billions of dollars.” The overall theme of the 37 page paper is that the targeting of certain businesses is going on to force them out of existence.

Source: White Paper on Operation Choke Point 2.0, Cooper & Kirk LLC

What are Regulators Accused Of

Specifically the regulators are being accused of:

  • Depriving businesses of their constitutional right to due process. This is a fifth amendment right that says that an entity tagging another with a derogatory label that causes injury (like lose bank accounts) The firm accuses that this is what the regulators have done by “labeling crypto a threat to the financial system.”
  • Violating both the non-delegation and anticommandeering doctrine by, “depriving Americans of Key Structural constitutional protections against the arbitrary exercise of government power.”
  • Refusing to perform their non-discretionary duties “when doing so will benefit the cryptocurrency industry.”
  • Evading rules that require periods of notice and comment of the rulemaking requirements of the administrative procedure act. It claims circumventing this is, “undemocratic.”
  • Acting in an arbitrary and capricious fashion by avoiding explaining underlying rules for their decisions. “It is difficult to imagine a more arbitrary and capricious agency action that simultaneously placing a solvent bank into receivership solely because it provided financial services to the cypto industry, while permitting insolvent institutions not tied to the crypto industry to continue operations.”

What is the Law Firms Stated Intent

Cooper and Kirk urge the U.S. Congress to perform its role and hold the agencies accountable. The firm urges the Congress to ask for all communications records related to these matters from the regulators.

The firm also would like for them to explain the basis for their conclusion that safety and soundness of the banking system requires the banking system be insulated from crypto. They would also like for it to be made clear to the agencies that the comment period of the Administrative procedure act is mandatory. It wanst an investigation into why Signature Bank was closed.

The last stated hope is fro Congress to investigate whether bank regulators are working to squelch innovation from the private sector in order to clear out competition for the benefit of existing regulated banks and a new federal crypto asset.

Take Away

Just like the first Operation Choke Point was targeting specific players, the new version does the same. The law firms stops short of any threats in their open paper, but it makes clear that the firm has solid experience achieving compliance if these maters.

https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf

Details of The New Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP)

FDIC, Federal Reserve, and Treasury Issue Joint Statements on Silicon Valley Bank

In a joint statement released by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg, they announced actions they are now committed to taking to “protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in the banking system.” The actions are being taken to ensure that “the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth.”

Specifically, the actions directly impact two banks, Silicon Valley Bank in California and Signature Bank in New York, but it was made clear that it could be extended to other institutions. The joint news release reads, “After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve and consulting with the President, Secretary Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, in a manner that fully protects all depositors. Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.

In a second release by the three agencies, details were uncovered as to how this was designed to not impact depositors, with losses being borne by stockholders and debtholders. The release reads as follows:

“The additional funding will be made available through the creation of a new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), offering loans of up to one year in length to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and other eligible depository institutions pledging U.S. Treasuries, agency debt and mortgage-backed securities, and other qualifying assets as collateral. These assets will be valued at par. The BTFP will be an additional source of liquidity against high-quality securities, eliminating an institution’s need to quickly sell those securities in times of stress.

With approval of the Treasury Secretary, the Department of the Treasury will make available up to $25 billion from the Exchange Stabilization Fund as a backstop for the BTFP. The Federal Reserve does not anticipate that it will be necessary to draw on these backstop funds.

After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary Yellen, after consultation with the President, approved actions to enable the FDIC to complete its resolutions of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in a manner that fully protects all depositors, both insured and uninsured. These actions will reduce stress across the financial system, support financial stability and minimize any impact on businesses, households, taxpayers, and the broader economy.

The Board is carefully monitoring developments in financial markets. The capital and liquidity positions of the U.S. banking system are strong and the U.S. financial system is resilient.”

Take Away

Confidence by depositors, investors, and all economic participants is important for those entrusted to keep the U.S. economy steady. The measures appear to strive for the markets to open on Monday with more calm than might otherwise have occurred.

While the sense of resolve of the steps explained in the two statements, both released at 6:15 ET Sunday evening is reminiscent of 2008, there is still no expectation that the problem is wider than a few institutions.

Paul Hoffman

Managing Editor, Channelchek

Sources:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20230312b.htm

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20230312a.htm

Three Regulators Provide Direction to Banks on Crypto

Image Credit: QuoteInspector.com (Flickr)

The Statement on Crypto Vulnerabilities by Regulators

A joint statement to banking organizations on “crypto-asset vulnerabilities” was just released by three bank regulatory agencies. Most banks in the U.S. fall under these three federal institutions overseeing them in a regulatory capacity. So when a statement regarding the health and stability of banks is made, it is often a joint statement from the three. At a minimum, statements include the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB), Office of the Controller of the Currency (OCC), and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC).

About the Statement

Issued on February 23rd, the multiple agencies felt a need to highlight liquidity risks presented by some “sources of funding” from crypto-asset-related entities, and practices they should be using to manage the risks.

The regulators remind banks that they are neither prohibited nor discouraged from offering banking services to this class of customer, but if they do, much of the existing risk management principles should be applied.

Related Liquidity Risks

Highlighted in the statement by the three bank regulatory bodies are key liquidity risks associated with crypto asset participants and crypto-asset organizations involved in banking and what they should be aware of.

This includes some sources of funding from crypto-asset-related entities that may pose heightened liquidity risks to those involved in banking due to the unpredictability of the scale and timing of deposit inflows and outflows, including, for example:

  • Deposits placed by a crypto-asset-related entity that is for the benefit of thecrypto-asset-related entity’s customers. The stability of the deposits, according to the statement, may be driven by the behavior of the end customer or asset sector dynamics, and not solely by the crypto-asset-related entity itself, which is the banking organization’s direct counterparty. The concern is the stability of the deposits may be influenced by, for example, periods of stress, market volatility, and related vulnerabilities in the crypto-asset sector, which may or may not be specific to the crypto-asset-related entity. Such deposits can be susceptible to large and rapid inflows as well as outflows when end customers react to crypto-asset-sector-related market events, media reports, and uncertainty. This uncertainty and resulting deposit volatility can be exacerbated by end customer confusion related to inaccurate or misleading representations of deposit insurance by a crypto-assetrelated entity.
  • Deposits that constitute stablecoin-related reserves. The stability of this type of  deposit may be linked to demand for stablecoins according to the agencies, along with the confidence of stablecoin holders in the coin arrangement, and the stablecoin issuer’s reserve management practices. These deposits can be susceptible to large and rapid outflows stemming from, for unanticipated stablecoin redemptions or dislocations in crypto-asset markets.

More broadly, when a banking organization’s deposit funding base is concentrated in crypto-asset-related entities that are highly interconnected or share similar risk profiles, deposit fluctuations may also be correlated, and liquidity risk therefore may be further heightened, according to the statement.

Effective Risk Management Practices

In light of these hightened risks, agencies think it is critical for banks that use certain sources of funding from crypto-asset-related entities, as described earlier, to actively monitor the liquidity risks inherent in these sources of funding and to establish and maintain effective risk management and controls commensurate with the level of liquidity risks from these funding sources. Effective practices for these banking organizations could include:

  • Understanding the direct and indirect drivers of the potential behavior of deposits from crypto-asset-related entities and the extent to which those deposits are susceptible to unpredictible vulnerability.
  • Assessing potential concentration or interconnectedness across deposits from crypto-asset-related entities and the associated liquidity risks.
  • Incorporating the liquidity risks or funding volatility associated with crypto-asset-related deposits into contingency funding planning, including liquidity stress testing and, as appropriate, other asset-liability governance and risk management processes.
  • Performing significant due diligence and monitoring of crypto-related-entities that establish deposit accounts, including assessing the representations made by those crypto-asset-related entities to their end customers about the accounts – if innaccurate they could lead to to unexpected or rapid outflows.

Additionally, banks and banking organizations are required to comply with applicable laws and regulations.  For FDIC insured institutions, this includes compliance with rules related to brokered deposits and Call Report filing requirements.

Paul Hoffman

Managing Editor, Channelchek

Sources

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/files/bcreg20230223a1.pdf