OCC Proposes Rules To Govern Stablecoin Issuers Under GENIUS Act

The OCC's draft defines which entities qualify as permitted issuers and what requirements apply to each category.

Crypto News

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

rules Wednesday to implement the GENIUS Act, the first federal stablecoin regulatory framework in the United States, which passed into law last July. The agency opened a 60-day public comment period covering how payment stablecoins will be issued, backed, supervised, and wound down under federal oversight.

The GENIUS Act bars any entity that is not a "permitted payment stablecoin issuer" from issuing a payment stablecoin in the U.S., and prohibits digital asset service providers from offering non-compliant stablecoins to U.S. users. The OCC's draft defines which entities qualify as permitted issuers and what requirements apply to each category.

The proposal covers reserve asset standards, mandatory redemption at par, liquidity and risk management controls, audit and examination requirements, custody rules, and application pathways for new entrants. It also introduces a "capital and operational backstop" and amends existing capital adequacy and enforcement rules.

The OCC said it will hold regulatory or enforcement authority over subsidiaries of national banks, federal savings associations, federal qualified payment stablecoin issuers, certain state-qualified issuers, and foreign issuers seeking U.S. market access. The inclusion of foreign issuers could bring offshore stablecoin operations into federal oversight for the first time.