Yellen convenes President’s Working Group to discuss stablecoins next week

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced Friday that a powerful group of federal financial regulators will meet next week to discuss stablecoins. 

The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) joins the Treasury, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). 

In a statement alongside the announcement, Yellen said: “In light of the rapid growth in digital assets, it is important for the agencies to collaborate on the regulation of this sector and the development of any recommendations for new authorities.” The meeting will take place Monday.

At the end of last year, the PWG released a report on stablecoins that the Treasury says will be a basis for next week’s meeting. But broadly speaking, stablecoin operators don’t have a clear federal regulator to answer to in the U.S., instead dealing with state-by-state charters and licenses. 

The issue of proper regulation of stablecoins is growing more prominent in the U.S. Just yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told a Senate subcommittee that proper regulation of stablecoins would be a “more direct solution” to U.S. payments than the Fed’s issuance of a central bank digital currency.