The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) has approved the application of Bakkt for virtual currency and money transmitter licenses. This license will allow Bakkt Marketplace to offer its New York customers the ability to buy and sell virtual currency and subject to DFS’s supervision of its licensed activities. Bakkt is owned by Intercontinental Exchange, which is also owner of the New York Stock Exchange.
Since 2015, DFS has granted 29 virtual currency licenses or trust charters to date. Under the leadership of DFS superintendent Linda Lacewell, its updated the regulatory approach to keep pace with changes in the market. This includes streamlining the process for companies to adopt new coins through a self-certification framework and a coins Greenlist, making use of DFS’ conditional licensing authority, and providing new clarity about its processes and expectations to applicants and licensed entities.
This new license comes as DFS is hosting its first-ever techsprint in partnership with the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the Alliance for Innovative Regulation, an initiative to convene regulators and industry stakeholders to work towards a common goal of Digital Regulatory Reporting (DRR), which aims to give regulators instant access to data provided by firms under their supervision. This effort comes in the context of a trend by global financial regulators to employ techsprints as a mechanism to rapidly prototype technology solutions to key supervisory problems.