The Joseph Biden administration has proposed to the Senate that a former crypto industry consultant be approved for the position of vice chairman of the US Federal Reserve.
Michael Barr was nominated by the President of the United States on April 15. Now the US Senate, which rejected Biden’s previous choice, Sarah Bloom Raskin, must vote to nominate a new Federal Reserve Vice Chair.
The White House presented Michael Barr as someone who “dedicated his career to consumer protection.” The official statement did not mention Barr’s experience in the financial industry, including a job at the fintech platform Lending Club.
Barr was hired to Ripple Labs’ board of directors in 2015 after stating that “innovations in payments can help make the financial system more secure, lower costs, and improve access and efficiency for both consumers and businesses.” Michael Barr is Dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan Law School and a former senior official at the US Treasury during the time of Barack Obama. He was instrumental in saving the financial system after the 2008 crisis.
If congressmen confirm Barr for the position of Fed vice chairman, he will take a leadership role in interagency consultations on stablecoin regulation and consideration of additional restrictions for the rest of the crypto industry.
Barr is said to be a heavy-regulatory and investor-protective advocate with extensive experience in financial inclusion initiatives. The former Ripple adviser is the author of No Slack: The Financial Lives of Low-Income Americans and co-author of Not Enough Funding, about managing the budgets of poor families in Detroit.
Previously, Michael Barr’s activities in the crypto industry irritated senators, who at one time rejected his candidacy for the post of head of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
