The chief economist of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a banking regulator within the U.S. Treasury, believes issuing national bank charters to “fintech shadow banks” could bring “substantial advantages.”

In a paper titled “Chartering the FinTech Future,” Charles Calomiris set out how stablecoin providers chartered as banks that do not rely on funding from deposits would themselves gain advantages from regulatory oversight.

Such companies would benefit by “coming out of the shadows,” he wrote, with geographic reach and market credibility outweighing the added cost burden of regulation.