HB 515 updates Florida’s Uniform Commercial Code to incorporate a new Article 12 framework for “controllable electronic records” and related digital assets. The bill creates a new chapter 669 with definitions, rules for control and transfer, rights of purchasers, discharge rules for account debtors, and governing-law provisions for these records. It also adds transitional rules to determine how preexisting transactions and security interests are treated when the new provisions take effect, and it expressly states that the chapter does not authorize or endorse a central bank digital currency.
Beyond the new digital-asset provisions, the bill makes broad conforming and technical changes across Florida’s UCC chapters on funds transfers, sales, negotiable instruments, letters of credit, securities, secured transactions, and leases. These changes update terminology to reflect electronic records and authentication, revise rules on control, perfection, priority, notice, and enforcement, and add or amend provisions for electronic chattel paper, electronic money, controllable accounts, and hybrid transactions or leases. The bill also revises several related statutes outside the UCC to align cross-references and definitions with the new framework.
The bill substantially revises Florida’s commercial law by adding a new statutory regime for controllable electronic records and by updating secured-transactions rules to cover digital assets such as controllable accounts, controllable payment intangibles, electronic money, and electronic chattel paper. It changes perfection and priority rules, including control-based perfection and choice-of-law provisions, and it clarifies the rights of purchasers and secured parties in electronic collateral. The bill also amends related provisions in chapters governing funds transfers, sales of goods, negotiable instruments, letters of credit, securities, and leases, while conforming numerous cross-references in other Florida statutes. It takes effect July 1, 2025, with transitional provisions generally preserving preexisting transactions and security interests subject to specified adjustment rules.
The available record shows no committee transcripts and no recorded votes, so there is no documented floor or committee debate to gauge sentiment directly. Based on the bill’s enactment and its comprehensive conforming changes, the measure appears to have been treated as a technical but significant modernization of commercial law rather than a controversial policy shift. The inclusion of an express statement that the chapter does not authorize or endorse a central bank digital currency suggests some sensitivity around digital-asset policy, but the bill’s overall posture is implementation-focused and largely administrative.
The main points of potential contention are the treatment of digital assets under the UCC, especially the new concepts of control, priority, and governing law for controllable electronic records and related collateral. Parties with existing security interests, account debtors, banks, and purchasers may be affected by the new perfection and priority rules, particularly where control rather than filing determines rights. Another likely issue is the bill’s explicit disclaimer regarding central bank digital currency, which indicates lawmakers wanted to avoid any implication that the statute endorses CBDC. No specific objections or opposing arguments are documented in the provided materials.