Major US banking trade groups have asked the Treasury Department and the FDIC to pause three GENIUS Act rulemaking comment periods until the OCC finalises its primary stablecoin framework, while stablecoin startup Agora simultaneously filed for a national trust bank charter on April 24 to establish a federal presence before the rules harden.
Summary
- The American Bankers Association and the Bank Policy Institute asked Treasury and the FDIC to wait 60 days after the OCC finishes its framework before running parallel comment periods, arguing the proposals are structurally interdependent.
- Agora CEO Nick van Eck called the banks’ stance “not much of a surprise,” adding that their real concern is deposit flight and the loss of yield spread between near-zero deposit rates and Fed reserves.
- Van Eck said Agora’s charter, if approved by year-end, would allow the company to issue stablecoins directly under federal oversight and eliminate what he called “egregious fees” in fiat-to-crypto on/off ramps.
The GENIUS Act banking groups officially pushed back on April 22 when the American Bankers Association, the Bank Policy Institute, and two other trade associations wrote to the Treasury Department and the FDIC requesting extended comment periods on three proposed implementation rules. As crypto.news reported, the groups argued that the Treasury’s equivalency rule, the FDIC’s issuer standards rule, and the FinCEN-OFAC anti-money-laundering directive are all “substantively tethered” to the OCC’s pending framework and cannot be meaningfully assessed until the OCC publishes its final rule. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, is scheduled to take effect no later than January 18, 2027.
“This is not much of a surprise,” van Eck said of the banking sector’s response, calling the law “one of the most significant pieces of banking legislation in our generation.” He said banks’ deeper concern is the prospect of users moving deposits to stablecoin platforms that can pass through higher yields, eroding the spread between near-zero deposit rates and returns banks earn at the Federal Reserve. Agora’s counter-move was to file for a national trust bank charter with the OCC on April 24, positioning the firm to issue stablecoins directly under federal oversight rather than waiting for the broader rulemaking to settle. Van Eck said a federal charter would eliminate “egregious fees” in fiat-to-crypto conversion infrastructure and allow Agora to expand into custody, compliance, and payments.
As crypto.news documented, the OCC released its proposed stablecoin rulebook in February 2026, covering issuance, reserves, supervision, and redemption requirements for permitted payment stablecoin issuers. That proposal opened a 60-day comment window that closed May 1. As crypto.news tracked, the Treasury separately proposed its own rules covering state-level oversight for issuers under $10 billion, with a June 2 comment deadline. Banks are effectively seeking to collapse the three separate timelines into a single coordinated process, which analysts say could delay the GENIUS Act’s activation by several months and give traditional lenders more time to assess the competitive threat from nonbank stablecoin issuers before the rules are locked.
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