McHenry Creates Subcommittee on Digital Assets

House Republicans are set to take a closer look at FinTechs and digital assets.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has created a new subcommittee devoted to digital assets, financial technology and inclusion, according to an announcement on the committee’s website.

The subcommittee’s jurisdiction will include setting “clear rules of the road among federal regulators for the digital asset ecosystem,” the announcement said.

In addition, it will also develop guidelines that help FinTechs reach underserved communities, while strengthening “diversity and inclusion in the digital asset ecosystem.”

The new subcommittees come at the start of a year where crypto companies and FinTechs should brace themselves for more scrutiny, PYMNTS’ Karen Webster wrote recently.

“Legislators and regulators have approached regulation of crypto and FinTech tentatively, often believing claims that they should do nothing to jeopardize the innovations that are meant to transform the world,” Webster wrote.

“They didn’t want to challenge visions expressed in language they couldn’t understand and were afraid to ask questions to advance their understanding,” Webster said.

Then the FTX crypto exchange collapsed, putting more pressure on crypto companies and FinTechs to prove their legitimacy.

These pressures, Webster wrote, are going to shape the regulatory debate, which is likely to end with the crypto sector facing tougher regulation than traditional banking, payments and finance.

FinTechs will also be under scrutiny, with the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency taking a closer look at the requirements for what it takes to operate as a bank and offer bank-like services.

Just before the GOP flipped the House year, McHenry, RN.C. PYMNTS that he planned to look into stablecoins.

“What we have now is a complicated policy,” he said in an interview with Webster, “and it’s a complicated piece of legislation — with compromises within … the nature of legislative compromise doesn’t often create something of beauty. It creates something of practical importance. And this is what I am going for.”

At a high level, he said, stablecoins are necessary, and are more stable than bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

“But we don’t have a federal regulatory scheme around it,” he told Webster, “or insight into the assets that act as support.”

PYMNTS data: Why consumers are trying digital wallets

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