The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee held a virtual hearing yesterday on the digitization of money and payments; Christopher Giancarlo, former chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and founder of the Digital Dollar Project, told the committee that America’s financial infrastructure had fallen behind the rest of the world and that we need to modernize; he said a US digital dollar would offer a seamless way to integrate with existing banking and payment functions, distributing funds to digital wallets; Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), Chairman of the committee, said that innovations like a digital dollar are “inevitable, beneficial, and the U.S. should lead in their development”; Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) proposed the Banking for All Act that would allow Americans to open fee free bank accounts at banks, post offices or online and hook directly into the Federal Reserve system. PYMNTS.
