FDIC Aligns With OCC to Solidify GENIUS Act Rules

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has proposed a rule that would establish a prudential framework for FDIC-supervised permitted stablecoin issuers.

This framework would include requirements for reserve assets, redemption, capital and risk management standards, the regulator said in a Tuesday (April 7) press release.

This is one of the proposals included in a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) approved Tuesday by the FDIC board of directors, according to the release. The proposed rule will be open to public comment for 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.

The NPRM would implement requirements and standards under the GENIUS Act, the release said.

The proposed rule would also establish requirements for FDIC-supervised permitted stablecoin issuers and insured depository institutions (IDIs) that provide certain stablecoin-related custodial and safekeeping services, and would clarify that tokenized deposits that satisfy the statutory definition of “deposit” would be treated the same as any other type of deposit under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, per the release.

FDIC Chairman Travis Hill said in a statement released Tuesday that this proposed rule “aligns in many respects” with a proposed rule issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in late February.

The OCC said in a Feb. 25 press release that its proposed rule addresses most of the regulations the OCC is required to implement under the GENIUS Act, including standards and requirements related to activities, reserve assets, risk management, custody, capital and operational backstop, and other issues related to payment stablecoins.

In his Tuesday statement, Hill said that “today’s proposal seeks comment on a range of topics, including on 144 specific questions, and we genuinely invite robust feedback on key issues in the proposal.”

The FDIC’s proposal is the regulator’s second action to implement the GENIUS Act. In December, the FDIC approved an NPRM that would implement procedures under which the IDIs the regulator supervises could seek to issue payment stablecoins.

The comment period on that NPRM, which was initially scheduled to end Feb. 17, was extended and is now set to end on May 18, according to the FDIC website.