Overview
- At the Fed’s Oct. 21 Payments Innovation Conference in Washington, Governor Christopher Waller said he asked staff to explore a new payment account that would offer direct but constrained access to Federal Reserve payment services.
- The proposed accounts would not pay interest, would carry balance caps, and would exclude daylight overdrafts and discount window borrowing, aiming to limit risk to the Fed and the payment system.
- Officials described the concept as early stage and said the Fed will seek stakeholder input, with no formal rule change or implementation timeline set and any analyst timelines remaining unofficial.
- If adopted, the framework could reduce crypto and fintech firms’ reliance on partner banks and potentially aid applicants such as Ripple, Kraken, Custodia, and Anchorage, subject to legal eligibility.
- The conference featured participants from across finance and tech, including Chainlink, Circle, Coinbase, BlackRock, and Google Cloud, underscoring growing engagement between the Fed and digital-asset payments innovators.