The US Treasury Department has announced it’ll be holding roundtable discussions next week that aim to “share the Government perspective on issues pertaining to financial access for MSBs (money services businesses) and to hear from industry.”

Representatives from the US Government, the regulatory community, banking and credit union sectors, and representatives of the MSB sector will be participating in the session. Cryptocurrency proponents are determined to make sure that Bitcoin will at the front and center of the roundtable discussions.

In response to the announcement, the Chamber of Digital Commerce (CDC) has created a Financial Access Task Force, and has also applied to be able to make a presentation during the discussion. The aim of this is to highlight the issues faced by digital currency businesses when they try to establish relationships with banks.

“Companies that are involved in developing and deploying the protocol of crypto currencies or other digital assets – but are not involved in the provision of money transmission or other MSB activities – are being denied access to banking services. At best, this is a tremendous diversion of time and resources. At worst, companies are forced out of business, without having the opportunity to recognize the full potential of the technology,” said Carol Van Cleef, chair of the Chamber’s Financial Access Task Force.

The CDC noted that some digital currency businesses have been included in the definition of MSBs, but still, some of these businesses were not able to successfully establish a relationship with banks because of strict compliance requirements. Since the early 2000s, the Patriot Act has brought tremendous pressure on banks to scrutinize their customers to be able to determine if they are money transmitters or MSBs. Banks have hence become the default regulator of MSBs, requiring them to submit more compliance requirements than money transmitters ever did. Also, the Patriot Act also gives banks the power to accept or reject businesses as their customers. Currently, many banks reject MSBs as they’re not included in their risk profile and it demands more effort from the banks to do background checks on the said companies.

The CDC aims to help bring digital currency businesses up to speed with compliance obligations, federal money laundering and criminal statutes, and teach them what anti-money laundering (AML) compliance is and how to manage it correctly.

Van Cleef also mentioned the story of the notorious dark web marketplace “Silk Road” taught them to be more diligent in distinguishing between illegal currency and legal currency used for illegal purposes, but noted that it is not that easy to distinguish between the two.

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