16 September 2021

BCBS consultation on Prudential treatment of cryptoasset exposures: EBF response

The goal should be to ensure a level playing field between the banking sector and market participants who are active in the issuance and trading of cryptoassets, but who are not within the scope of prudential regulation

The European Banking Federation has responded to the consultation of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision on the prudential treatment of cryptoasset exposures.

During the development of the regulatory framework, it will be important to ensure that the following g considerations are taken into account:

• Therefore, it is important that the framework sets the right incentive for banks to engage with cryptoassets, which will have a positive impact on the development of the market
• Furthermore, the objective should be to avoid that those activities related to cryptoassets are being shifted into unregulated sectors, which do not have to adhere to the same high regulatory standards as banks
• Overall, it will be important to use the principle of “same risk, same activity, same treatment” as the guiding principle for all further discussions, which would ensure that cryptoassets that have the same risk as traditional assets are treated in the same way. For this it will be important to develop a more granular and differentiated classification of cryptoassets, which better reflects the diverse nature of those assets
• Lastly, the EBF encourages the Basel Committee to take into due consideration the discussion taking place in its member jurisdictions, such as the discussion in the EU around the MiCA proposals

EBF

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