The US banking sector is increasingly involved in the cryptocurrency 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 Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. In a letter addressed to the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, the bankers are seeking extended comment periods of at least 60 days after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) completes its rulemaking effort.
The OCC's stablecoin issuer policing rule is crucial to the outcome of other rules being developed 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. According to the bankers, all these efforts are directly contingent on the OCC's final framework and represent a regulatory undertaking of unprecedented scope and complexity. The banking organizations, including the American Bankers Association and the Bank Policy Institute, argue that they need sufficient time to evaluate the proposed rules together and against the finalized OCC framework to provide comprehensive and useful comments to the agencies. The GENIUS Act is slated to come into effect by 2027, although it is common for federal agencies to grant extensions for complex rules.
The Treasury Department has not 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.