The GENIUS Act, enacted on July 18, 2025, establishes a federal framework for payment stablecoins and generally bars unauthorized entities from issuing them in the US.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has finalized regulations implementing the GENIUS Act, setting out rules for payment stablecoin issuers and related activities overseen by the federal banking regulator.
Published on October 21, 2026, the final rule will take effect on January 18, 2027. It covers the regulations the OCC is required to issue under the law, with Bank Secrecy Act compliance, anti-money laundering requirements and sanctions administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control excluded from the rule and reserved for separate rulemaking in coordination with the Treasury Department.
Most of the new requirements are contained in a new section of federal regulations, 12 CFR 15, which establishes standards for stablecoin activities, reserve assets, redemption procedures, risk management, audits, reporting and regulatory supervision.
The framework also covers custody, issuer applications and registrations, oversight of foreign issuers, transitions by state-qualified issuers to federal regulation, and circumstances in which an issuer’s approval may be revoked or rescinded.
The OCC said the final rule incorporates or addresses feedback submitted after its February 25, 2026, proposed rulemaking. Additional amendments update existing rules governing capital adequacy, prompt corrective action, regulatory assessments and procedures.
The GENIUS Act, enacted on July 18, 2025, establishes a federal framework for payment stablecoins and generally bars unauthorized entities from issuing them in the US.
Digital asset service providers are also restricted from offering or selling payment stablecoins to US customers unless the issuer is permitted under the law or meets the requirements for foreign issuers.
Daily. Free. Join 34,000+ readers across crypto, finance, and policy.
The OCC will exercise regulatory or enforcement authority over specified bank subsidiaries, federal qualified payment stablecoin issuers, certain state-qualified issuers and foreign payment stablecoin issuers.
The final rule also addresses custody activities conducted by institutions subject to OCC supervision.
The OCC took its first swing at that question on February 25, 2026. That day, it issued a proposed rule focused on indirect yield payments routed through affiliates.
The key idea was a rebuttable presumption . Certain affiliate and third-party relationships could be treated as indirect yield if they offered incentives linked to holding stablecoins.
Put simply, the regulator would assume a reward program was a yield workaround. The burden would then fall on the company to prove otherwise.
The OCC’s stated goal was to stop firms from sidestepping the direct prohibition on interest. Nobody wants a rule that can be defeated by moving the payout one corporate entity to the left.
The public comment period on the proposal closed on May 1, 2026. The OCC received 47 formal comments, from stakeholders including Visa and JPMorgan .
The final rule’s decision to start fresh suggests the OCC is not simply rubber-stamping its February draft. The final rule could enforce the prohibition strictly, catching a broad swath of affiliate rewards. Or it could take a more lenient path, focusing mainly on payments made directly by issuers.