OCC finalizes first GENIUS Act stablecoin rule, effective January 2027

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency finalized its first stablecoin rule under the GENIUS Act on October 21, 2026, becoming the first federal regulator to finish its part of the new framework. The rule takes effect January 18, 2027.

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said the rule gives firms "a clear, practical framework for payment stablecoin innovation." The agency published it as OCC Bulletin 2026-50. It governs payment stablecoins, the dollar-pegged tokens such as USD1 that aim to hold a steady value. Most of the measure sits in a new part of the banking code, 12 CFR 15, and revises four existing parts.

What the rule requires

Issuers must hold reserve assets worth at least as much as the stablecoins in circulation. That is the one-to-one backing the GENIUS Act demands. Redemption requests must generally clear within two business days. Other regulators have drawn comparable lines on reserves and interest.

Coverage is broad. The rule reaches national banks, federal savings associations, federal branches and their subsidiaries. It also applies to nonbank firms approved as federal qualified issuers, to foreign issuers, and to state issuers that fall under OCC authority. Beyond reserves, the text sets standards for capital, custody, audits and risk management.

The package makes the OCC the first federal banking regulator to finish its stablecoin rulebook under the law. Other agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, still have pieces to write. Gould's office framed the speed as a selling point for firms that want regulatory certainty before they launch a dollar token in the United States.

What changed from the February draft

Gould's agency softened the proposal it floated on February 25 in two main ways. Issuers can now pull surplus reserves whenever they like, as long as the coins stay fully backed, rather than waiting for a monthly window. Longer-dated Treasuries are back on the table as well, because the final rule scraps a proposed 20-day limit on the weighted-average maturity of reserve assets.

One cushion is gone. The proposal would have let issuers stretch redemption deadlines during a rush of withdrawals. The final rule removes it. An issuer must now tell the OCC within 24 hours if redemptions top 10 percent of a coin's outstanding value in a single day.

Comment and drafting history explain some of the shifts. The OCC proposed the rule on February 25, 2026, and published it in the Federal Register on March 2 under 91 Fed. Reg. 10202. Comment letters followed from banks, exchanges and consumer groups. The final text shows the agency moved toward industry on reserves and rewards, while keeping the core protections the statute spells out.

The rewards fight the rule leaves open

On yield, the rule holds the line. The GENIUS Act bars issuers from paying interest or rewards to people simply for holding a stablecoin, and that ban survives. What the final rule drops is a presumption from the draft that certain deals between issuers and affiliates or outside parties would break the ban. Those arrangements will now face case-by-case review.

Rewards matter because they are how many people earn a return on dollar tokens today. An exchange might pay a few percent a year to users who park stablecoins on its platform. The GENIUS Act aimed at issuers, not those platforms, which is why the question of who can pay what is still live.

An OCC official, who was not named, set out the stance on the rewards programs that exchanges run. "We will just let the market develop and address it as it comes," the official said. The official declined to say whether the schemes exchanges already offer comply. That leaves a gap. Exchanges, not issuers, run most of today's rewards programs, and the Act does not cover them directly.

What to watch

Firms have a short runway. Between the October announcement and the January effective date sits about three months for issuers and their lawyers to map the reserve, redemption and reporting duties onto systems they already run. Banks that already custody crypto will find parts of the rule familiar. Newer entrants face a longer list.

Applications come next. The OCC has not said when it will start taking them from firms that want federal qualified issuer status, nor when it will accept waiver requests. Rules on money laundering and sanctions are not in this package either. The OCC and the Treasury Department will handle those in a separate rulemaking, with no date attached.

For context, the GENIUS Act became law on July 18, 2025, and a broader market-structure bill, the Clarity Act, failed a Senate procedural vote in September. The stablecoin rulebook is the piece moving fastest, and the OCC just put its stamp on the first chapter.