Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of financial services for the New York State Department of Financial Services, is perhaps best known among FinTech watchers for championing New York’s proposed BitLicense regulation.
Yesterday, at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, Lawsky proposed revising the original BitLicense regulation, and also threw in some choice comments about speeding up payments in the United States.
Lawsky speaks at length about BitLicenses in the video below (his comments start around the 1:09:00 mark). Perhaps the most significant aspect of his talk related to BitLicenses involves the proposal to offer transitional licenses for companies unable to fully comply with the regulation as it is envisioned. He also said BitLicenses would not require identity verification of all parties in a virtual currency transaction. This last point raised a furious outcry when BitLicenses were first proposed this summer.
These two items should win much praise from the virtual currency community, which spoke darkly about excluding New York residents from transactions should BitLicenses as previously proposed come into effect. The regulation is not yet in effect, and the NYSDFS has not yet issued the revised draft, though it has announced it plans to do so shortly. When it does, a 30-day comment period will commence. The last comment period garnered some 3,700 comments.
Another important point Lawsky raised was the slowness of banks to adopt faster payments. “Virtual currency could have the potential to force the existing legacy payments system to up its game in a significant way,” Lawsky said, adding that regulatory pressure might help move the banks along to faster payments.
All told, Lawsky’s speech is a win for Bitcoin startups, but not for banks.