In response to a recent article from Axios, Steve Murphy, Director of Commercial and Enterprise Payments at Mercator Advisory Group, dives into the recent Fact Sheet the White House released, and what it means.
He says:
The Axios article is largely based on what was covered by the White House in a Fact Sheet they released, which summarizes some of the agency reports that were mandated by the executive order on cryptos, for example, back in March 2022. Reading through the fact sheet, one can see some summarized content of the nine reports that have been submitted to date as part of the executive order.
At the time of the executive order, we commented on these pages that the Federal Reserve Board of Governors had already pointed out in their January discussion paper. But, we did recognize that there were some other things on the ‘to-do’ list, including reports from the Secretary of Commerce and the Attorney General around competitiveness and international law enforcement, and that all of these reports were to be coordinated, which is typically a good thing given the mammoth size of the executive branch of the federal government.
All these reports are to be coordinated with other cabinet members, so this is just meant to show that everyone is basically on the same page. Various regulations are mentioned, and one interesting one from this purview is the statement that ‘The President will also consider agency recommendations to create a federal framework to regulate nonbank payment providers.’ That has long been an open question and one that we reviewed in recent member research. More is likely to come by Q1 2023. The author in the Axios article also makes a comment about the digital dollar, which of course is more or less a fait accompli. It’s just a matter of when, what delivery system, and how it’ll be managed.
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group.
