Banks' Capital Rules When Holding Crypto Need to Be Reworked, Says Basel Committee Chair: FT

The rules on banks holding large amounts of capital to cover losses in cryptocurrency need a rework, the chair of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said, according to the Financial Times (FT).

A new approach is needed because the U.S. and U.K. refused to implement the rules, which extend to stablecoins even though they don't experience the considerable price swings seen in tokens like BTC $ 89,257.00 and ether ETH $ 2,912.85, Erik Thedéen said in an interview with the newspaper.

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The framework proposed in 2021 by the Basel Committee, the global standard-setter for bank prudential regulation, was set to come into force at the start of the next year. The widespread growth of stablecoins this year has led to calls for a rethink. The committee operates under the auspices of the Bank for International Settlements, an organization owned by many of the world's central banks.

"The focus back then was very much on the bitcoins of this world," said Thedéen. "Now of course everyone is talking about stablecoins. Permissionless ledgers: are these as risky as we thought? Or is there an argument we can look at this in a different way? We need to start analyzing. But we need to be fairly quick on it."

The U.S. Federal Reserve's vice-chair of supervision, Michelle Bowman, last month called the rules "not very realistic." The Bank of England also decided not to implement them in their current form, according to the FT.