Anchorage Digital, the first cryptocurrency company to obtain a US banking charter, wants international banks to exchange correspondent banking relationships with a new service that offers rails of US-regulated stablecoins to non-US institutions.
The bank is launching what it calls “Stablecoin Solutions” to enable easy cross-border movement of dollar-pegged assets, combining “minting and redemption, custody, fiat treasury management and settlement” into a single service, it said in a statement Thursday.
“Stablecoins are becoming core financial infrastructure,” Nathan McCauley, co-founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital, said in a statement. “Stablecoin Solutions offers banks a federally regulated way to move dollars globally using blockchain rails, without compromising custody, compliance or operational control.”
Now that the US has a new law governing stablecoin issuers under last year’s Guidance and Establishment of National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, Anchorage Digital, already regulated under a federal statute by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, is taking steps to offer stablecoin services. While it is ready to handle any stablecoin brand, a field currently dominated by Tether’s $USDT and Circle $USDC, the company said institutions can mint and redeem tokens natively “issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, including Tether’s USA₮, Ethena Labs’ USDtb, OSL’s USDGO, and upcoming issuances like Western Union’s USDPT.”
Correspondent banking allows foreign banks to use another institution to handle their cross-border activities, such as electronic transfers, currency exchange, taking foreign deposits and acting as a representative of a third party. But it can be expensive and time-consuming. Anchorage Digital suggests that you can use stablecoin rails to reduce settlement delays and simplify the complexity of the existing system.
The GENIUS Act that will govern this business has not yet been implemented by federal agencies involved in regulation and supervision, such as the OCC and other banking watchdogs. Those agencies have begun to propose some future regulations.
Some provisions on stablecoin performance are now being reopened in the Senate’s ongoing negotiation on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.
Read more: Tether invests $100 million in US crypto bank Anchorage, valued at $4.2 billion
