Today: Senate Banking Committee to markup digital assets bill

The Senate Banking Committee will mark up digital assets legislation today, and yesterday America’s Credit Unions submitted comments thanking the committee for its work on including credit unions and granting the industry new powers, while providing several recommendations for the bill.  

The Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act of 2025 provides clear authorization for both federal credit unions and federally insured, state-chartered credit unions to participate with digital assets, and envisions a path for privately insured, state-chartered credit unions to have opportunities in this space as well.  

America’s Credit Unions thanked committee members for their work to improve the bill’s language to ensure the inclusion of credit unions in a new digital assets marketplace but urged further restrictions on the payment of interest or yield on stablecoins.  

“The compromise language is an improvement over previous language, but we still share some of the concerns that others have raised about the compromise language’s potential impact on deposit outflow from traditional financial institutions,” the letter reads in discussing the yield issue. “In particular, we have concerns about the narrow formulation of the prohibition on interest and yield that could open structuring opportunities that could allow passive earnings of interest and yield and undermine the Congressional intent of the prohibition.”

The bill does include language sought by America’s Credit Unions requiring a report to Congress to look at the extent to which credit unions are affected by any depository outflows due to the provisions covering payment of interest or yield on stablecoins.  

“We urge the Committee to express your affirmative commitment to revisiting and amending Section 404 should the CLARITY Act become law and the report to Congress find that the concerns and potential negative impacts on community financial institutions, including credit unions, from enacting this language in Section 404 prove true,” the letter reads.  

The letter also urges the Committee to “reject any unrelated or unvetted amendments at tomorrow’s markup that would expand the scope of this legislation, including efforts to establish a federal rate cap on financial products or involve the federal government in further regulation of interchange.”

The committee is scheduled to markup the bill starting at 10:30 a.m. Eastern, and will stream it live.  

Read the full letter