A competitive digital assets marketplace means credit union parity with banks

July 10, 2025

Ensuring a competitive digital asset marketplace for consumers means credit unions must have parity with banks as users and issuers of digital assets. America’s Credit Unions President/CEO Jim Nussle wrote to the Senate Banking Committee in advance of its hearing on the digital assets marketplace to call for such parity.

America’s Credit Unions supports legislative frameworks that:

  • Assign the NCUA primary responsibility for regulating the activities of credit unions and which affirm the necessary authorities for credit unions to meaningfully engage with stablecoins and virtual currencies;
  • Require federal oversight of nonbank issuers of stablecoins to ensure consistent supervision, anti-money laundering compliance, and application of safety and soundness expectations;
  • Emphasize strong anti-fraud protections for all issuers of digital assets in order to protect against scams targeting the elderly;
  • Do not treat digital assets as federally insured, whether in the form of a bank deposit or a credit union deposit under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act or the Federal Credit Union Act;
  • Adopt appropriate guardrails to prevent the erosion of the financial sector’s commercial deposit base by entities that may offer products which blend features of currencies and investments but lack prudential oversight; and
  • Ensure credit unions are not disadvantaged compared to other regulated financial institutions when it comes to investing in digital assets.

Nussle added that “establishing barriers to credit union engagement with digital assets would undercut many of the financial inclusion benefits that may be realized through related technologies.”

America’s Credit Unions supports the Senate-passed Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which defines the term “insured depository institution” to include credit unions and designates the NCUA as the primary federal payment stablecoin regulator for the credit union industry.

Read the full letter here.