Global: Federal Reserve Finalizes Guidelines for Access to Its Payment Systems

The Federal Reserve said it would adopt a tiered approach toward determining whether to grant financial institutions access to its payment systems and signaled that cryptocurrency companies would be subject to a higher level of review.

The Fed’s board in Washington issued final guidelines for its 12 regional branches to use when evaluating applications for so-called master accounts with the central bank. Such accounts allow financial institutions—primarily banks—to move trillions of dollars a day on the Fed’s payment systems.