US Fed Announces Vacancy for Retail Payments Manager with Crypto, Blockchain Expertise

The US Fed has announced openings for a manager who is experienced enough to take care of its Retail Payments division in Washington, D.C. Specifically, the appointee is expected to provide valuable inputs to the study of digital currencies, distributed ledger technologies and stablecoins.

In addition to the major tasks and obligations, the job also necessitates the manager to foster and provide inputs to the creation and deployment of new guidelines, rules and research in connection to retail payment platforms.

The fresh appointment will be made in the Retail Payments section, which monitors the Federal Reserve Bank’s check and automated clearinghouse facilities, enable research in retail payments mechanism and resolve regulatory and guideline problems related to retail payment mechanisms.

The top salary for the position is specified as federal grade 29, implying that the Fed is interested in paying up to $250,7000 per year for suitable persons.

A month before, two members of the US House of Representatives Financial Services Committee queried the Federal Reserve to know the latter’s interest in rolling out a US dollar pegged cryptocurrency, indicating their worries that the predominance of the US dollar could be at stake “from wide adoption of digital fiat currencies.”

The Fed’s intention to extend the responsibility of Retail Payments manager to provide inputs about stablecoins, other cryptos and distributed ledger technologies clearly indicate that US central bank is certainly exploring various options.

In September, Simon Potter, ex-Federal Reserve official stated that suggestions to terminate the supremacy of the US dollar by substituting it with a cryptocurrency looks fallacious. He further stated:

“I see no argument that makes sense to have something that complicated out there when you have large, liquid capital markets in the U.S. Not having one currency that you can basically price things and have a deep market in, that makes life much harder for the global economy.”