The banking sector is increasingly involved in the cryptocurrency industry's key regulatory endeavors, with a coalition of bank trade associations recently petitioning the US Department of the Treasury to prolong the public consultation period for the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. In a letter addressed to the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, US bankers are seeking extended comment periods for three GENIUS Act rule proposals, requesting a minimum of 60 days after the completion of another rulemaking effort by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC's initiative to implement its rule for overseeing stablecoin issuers has significant implications for the outcome of 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 that the collective regulatory work is of 'extraordinary scope and complexity'.
The banking organizations, including the American Bankers Association and the Bank Policy Institute, emphasized that their comments would be more comprehensive and useful to the agencies if they had sufficient time to evaluate the proposed rules together and against the finalized OCC framework. 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 immediately responded to a request for comment on 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.