In a speech last week, Acting Comptroller Rodney Hood outlined his top priorities for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, including efforts to promote financial inclusion and expand the banks’ ability to provide cryptocurrency services.
In his remarks, Hood said he is focused on four policy areas: Reducing regulatory burden, embracing bank-fintech relationships, expanding responsible bank activities involving digital assets, and financial inclusion. He called the latter “the civil rights issue of our time.”
“Consider the 40% of American households that cannot cover a $400 emergency expense, or the nearly 70 million individuals in the U.S. who are credit invisible,” Hood said. “Without access to fair and affordable financial services, they remain vulnerable to predatory lenders, to economic shocks, and to exclusion from opportunity.”
Hood noted that the OCC in 2020 launched Project REACh — or the Roundtable for Economic Access and Change — which convenes leaders from banking, business, technology and community organizations to identify and reduce barriers that prevent underserved communities from fully participating in the economy. That work continues through expanding the availability of credit and promoting affordable housing, he said.
Hood also spoke about efforts to ensure that crypto activities occur within the federal banking system according to a safe and sound framework. “The OCC recently reaffirmed that a range of cryptocurrency activities are permissible by the institutions we supervise,” he said. “We expect banks to have the same strong risk management controls in place to support novel bank activities as they do for traditional ones.”
