OCC chief refutes Democratic pressure allegations as Congress debates WLFI banking license and stablecoin regulation

ChainCatcher reports, according to CoinDesk, that the U.S. House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on stablecoin regulation and World Liberty Financial (WLFI)'s bank license application. Jonathan Gould, Comptroller of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), denied endorsing Trump and pointed out that the only political pressure his agency faced came from Democratic lawmakers, not Trump. The Democratic side questioned the compliance of WLFI's bank license application on the grounds of its links with foreign investors and allegedly noncompliant entities, including a certain exchange.

In addition, Travis Hill, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), stated that new rules will soon be proposed requiring stablecoin issuers to establish customer identification programs. Michael Bowman, vice chair of supervision at the Federal Reserve, explained how a certain exchange received approval for a Federal Reserve master account, emphasizing that the account's privileges are limited, the initial term is 12 months, and the process will be closely monitored to accumulate experience for formal rulemaking.