U.S. banking regulators said tokenised securities will receive the same capital treatment as traditional securities, emphasising that regulatory rules remain “technology neutral.”
The guidance from the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency clarifies that banks should apply existing capital requirements regardless of whether securities are issued on blockchain infrastructure.
“The technologies used to issue and transact in a security do not generally impact its capital treatment,”
The agencies said.
Regulators added that derivatives linked to eligible tokenised securities should also be treated the same as derivatives referencing traditional versions of those assets.
Under the guidance, banks will not need to over-collateralise when holding tokenised securities, unlike certain volatile or unproven digital assets.
“An eligible tokenised security should be treated in the same manner as the non-tokenised form of the security would be treated under the capital rule,”
The agencies added.
Interest in asset tokenisation has accelerated among major financial firms including JPMorgan, BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, partly because blockchain systems enable continuous 24-hour trading compared with traditional market hours.