The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) is preparing to revise its 2022 guidance on bank crypto exposure, Bloomberg reported. The planned update will make the rules more workable for banks that want to handle stablecoins and other digital assets but faced high capital costs under the earlier framework. The 2022 standards were read by many banks as a signal to avoid crypto. Several jurisdictions, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, have not fully implemented those rules yet, so the committee is reviewing them before they become final.
The revision is tied to the growth of regulated, asset backed stablecoins that are now allowed for payments in the U.S. under the GENIUS Act. Under the current Basel text, stablecoins issued on public blockchains fall into the same capital bucket as high volatility assets such as Bitcoin BTC 109,983 and Ether ETH 3,859. Market participants said this treatment does not reflect the lower risk profile of stablecoins backed by cash or cash equivalents.
Stablecoin rules seen as too tight for payment use
BCBS members recently reopened the 2022 rules to see if they still fit the current stablecoin market, Bloomberg reported. They did this because payment stablecoins have expanded quickly. Several national authorities now allow these stablecoins to be used in regulated financial services. Basel standards shape national banking rules, so banks pay attention to them. If stablecoins stay in the same high risk group as speculative crypto, banks will reduce their role in this area. That would keep stablecoin activity mostly outside the banking system.
Under the existing framework, banks must hold capital against such assets as if they were highly risky. This makes bank participation in stablecoin issuance, custody, settlement or clearing expensive. Industry players argued that this outcome is not aligned with jurisdictions that already apply risk based treatment. The EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework, for example, lets stablecoins receive capital treatment linked to the quality of their backing, usually cash and cash equivalents.
Industry points to capital “chokepoint” effect
The Bloomberg report followed earlier comments from Chris Perkins, president of CoinFund, who said in August that Basel capital requirements were acting as a “chokepoint” for banks. He said:
“It’s a very nuanced way of suppressing activity by making it so expensive for the bank to do activities that they’re just like, ‘I can’t.’”
His description matched the view of banks that wanted to support tokenized or blockchain based payment products but could not justify the capital impact under the 2022 text. Because the rules were broad, they captured both volatile tokens and regulated stablecoins.
Different jurisdictions weigh timing
According to Bloomberg, some countries, including the U.S., want to update the Basel Committee crypto standards before full domestic rollout. Others prefer to implement the current package and revise it later. In both cases, the Basel Committee remains the main international standard setter for bank capital, risk management and supervision. Its rules, including Basel III, are not laws but are usually adopted by global banks once national regulators transpose them.
If the revised text separates stablecoins with regulated reserves from unbacked cryptoassets, banks will have clearer conditions to hold, transfer or service them. The committee has not released the updated language yet.