The banking sector is increasingly involved in the crypto industry's key regulatory endeavors, with a coalition of bank trade associations recently requesting that the US Department of the Treasury extend the public consultation period for the implementation of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. In a letter to the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, the bankers are seeking extended comment periods for three GENIUS Act rule proposals, to commence at least 60 days after the conclusion of another rule effort by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC's push to implement its rule for policing stablecoin issuers has significant implications for other rules being pursued by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), as well as a related rulemaking at the FDIC. The bankers argue that all these efforts are directly contingent on the OCC's final framework and represent a complex body of regulatory work.
The banking organizations, including the American Bankers Association and the Bank Policy Institute, believe that having sufficient time to evaluate the proposed rules together and against the finalized OCC framework will enable them to provide more comprehensive and useful comments to the agencies. The GENIUS Act is slated to be in place by 2027, although federal agencies often grant extensions for complex rules. The Treasury Department has not yet responded to the bank industry's request. Meanwhile, the same bankers are engaged in a stablecoin-related debate with the crypto industry, which has delayed the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act for months and potentially jeopardized its chances of becoming law this year.