Dive Brief:
- E-commerce giant Amazon and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz this month each sought exemptions from a rule proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
- In a letter posted on the CFPB’s website Jan. 8, Seattle-based Amazon asked that its Amazon Pay product, used to facilitate online purchases, not be covered by the rule aimed at extending the agency’s oversight to big tech digital wallets. Menlo Park, California-based Andreessen Horowitz used its letter to ask for carve-outs for digital assets such as non-fungible tokens, as well as digital wallets for cryptocurrencies.
- Services such as Amazon Pay should not be regulated because they “do not enable P2P payments or store value, but rather only store payment credentials and facilitate transactions,” Amazon contended in its letter.
Dive Insight:
Andreessen Horowitz asked the CFPB to more explicitly define what kinds of payment services the rule would cover.
“The scope of the Proposed Rule has the potential to, perhaps unintentionally, encompass providers or developers of technologies that are not directly involved in transferring funds or executing transactions,” Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, said in its letter.
The two letters are among the 60 comments received on the CFPB’s rule, which was first proposed last November. The rule, if finalized, would give the government agency the ability to oversee digital wallet and payment companies, including wallets offered by tech giants Apple and Google.
Trade groups, including the Crypto Council for Innovation, Electronic Transactions Association and the Financial Technology Association, submitted comments last month pushing back on the CFPB’s plan, noting that the agency didn’t release a list of the 17 companies that would be covered by the rule.
Members of Congress also submitted letters, seeking clarity on exactly what kind of payments services would be regulated and what risks consumers faced from those services.
The deadline for comments closed last Monday, the date that the letters from the tech giant and major tech investor were submitted.
Amazon, Andreessen Horowitz and the CFPB did not immediately respond to requests for comment on those companies’ letters.
