🚨SCOOP: Connecticut-based fintech bank Numisma (formerly named Currency Reserve) has received conditional approval for access to a Federal Reserve master account, making it the second non-FDIC-insured, non-federally regulated bank to receive one in recent years. What’s interesting to note here: Both banks that received approval have been associated with former Fed officials. One of Numisma’s founders is former Fed Vice Chairman Randy Quarles. The other bank, Reserve Trust, received a master account in 2018 and also happened to have former Fed Vice Chair Sarah Bloom Raskin on its board. The Kansas City Fed ended up revoking Reserve Trust’s master account in 2022. The Fed has said in recent denials of other banks’ master account applications that institutions which are not FDIC insured and not federally regulated are unsafe and unsound, yet these two banks were able to get approval. Based on this, I think a valid question here is: Could those approvals have anything to do with the banks’ connections to former Federal Reserve people?