Circle to seek US crypto-bank license in the near future

The issuer of the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin, Circle, is preparing to file for a cryptocurrency bank license in the United States. This was stated by Circle’s chief executive Jeremy Allaire in an interview with Bloomberg.

In the interview, the company’s CEO did not specify when exactly the filing would be submitted, noting only that it would occur “in the near future”. He also stressed that Circle “has achieved significant progress” in this area.

In August 2021 Allaire said that Circle will become “a commercial cryptocurrency bank with full reserves”, the activities of which would be regulated in accordance with risk-management requirements of the ФРС, the United States Department of the Treasury, OCC and FDIC.

According to Circle’s chief executive, the company has since held talks with regulators. In particular, the OCC specialists discussed with the organization’s leadership a range of questions related to blockchain interoperability and the assessment of operational risks for particular decentralized networks.

If successful, Circle’s initiative would be the fourth company to receive approval as a national “digital asset bank”. In 2021 conditional licenses were granted to Anchorage, Protego Trust Bank and Paxos.

On April 14, Circle also announced that former Diem Association vice-president Dante Disparte joined the company’s board of directors and the Centre consortium, a joint venture with Coinbase.

Congratulations to @ddisparte for being appointed as @centre_io newest board member to help achieve a more inclusive and connected blockchain-based financial ecosystem.https://t.co/IDoS3Vacin

— Circle (@circlepay) April 13, 2022

Earlier in April 2022, Circle announced a financing round of $400 million with BlackRock and Fidelity.

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