The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) will publish its final rule implementing the GENIUS Act by November 2026, Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould said on August 19, 2026, in a public interview at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in Jackson Hole. The rule sets the terms of a federal charter for payment stablecoin issuers, the piece still missing from the US framework. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, restricts issuance to authorized issuers, but the agency that grants those authorizations has yet to finalize the conditions.
“We are very intent on moving quickly and getting a final rule out by November so that we will be able to start processing applications within the new year,” Gould said. He added that the agency had started early: “We were working on the rule even before the President actually signed the bill into law.”
The law’s effective date drives the timetable
The law takes effect in January 2027 and sets January 18, 2027, as the deadline for finalizing its implementing rules. An interim deadline in July 2026 was missed. The November target follows from a simple constraint: for an issuer to be authorized on the day the law applies, the agency needs a stable rule and time to review applications.
February’s 376-page proposal covers an issuer’s full life cycle
The proposal the OCC put out for comment in February 2026 runs to 376 pages and goes well beyond entry requirements. It lays out a full prudential regime, from the first token issued to the issuer’s wind-down:
- The composition of the reserves backing tokens in circulation, and which assets qualify.
- Redemption at par, and the timelines a holder can enforce.
- Liquidity requirements sized to absorb a concentrated wave of redemptions.
- The risk management framework and the audits required of the issuer.
- Custody of reserve assets and their separation from the issuer’s own balance sheet.
- Orderly wind-down procedures, so that a failure does not spill over to holders.
Charter applications are arriving ahead of the rule
Stablecoin issuer licensing is not the only queue. Gould said the OCC had received 40 applications for new bank charters in about 18 months, and that 23 of them involve some form of digital asset activity in their business plans. That is an eightfold increase on the pace of the previous four years, he said. “It is becoming ordinary course to involve and integrate payment stablecoins, etc., in the business plans that we are now seeing presented to the OCC for consideration.”
This is where the timetable comes under strain. Reviewing a charter application takes examiners, and the agency’s headcount has fallen by about 1,000 in two years. “What keeps me up at night is the possibility that I won’t have enough people at the OCC who stand up and hear what I’m saying and respond to it with enthusiasm and vigor,” Gould said, while adding that he sees many staff members excited about the work.
Four agencies share the implementation work
| Agency | Remit | Status |
|---|---|---|
| OCC | Chartering and supervision of federally chartered issuers | Proposal in February 2026, final rule promised for November |
| Treasury Department | Defining the issuance, offer, and sale of a payment stablecoin | Comment period opened August 17, 2026 |
| FDIC | Deposit insurance and the related banking scope | Named among the agencies responsible for implementation |
| Federal Reserve | Supervision of issuers tied to a member bank | Named among the agencies responsible for implementation |
That division of labor explains why two separate consultations opened two days apart. On August 17, the Treasury sought comment on where the licensing requirement begins, meaning the cases in which a token counts as issued, offered, or sold in the US. The OCC handles the next question: once the requirement applies, how a firm obtains a charter and what it must comply with afterward.
Gould drops reputational risk from the exam framework
Most of the interview dealt with supervisory philosophy rather than technical detail. Gould described the agency’s earlier stance as a strategy of “risk elimination” toward crypto and called it “extremely shortsighted.” He said it had cast “a cloud of reputation risk” over digital asset activity, and that the OCC has since “excised” reputational risk from its “lexicon.” “Crypto is part of the business of banking,” he said. “My job is not about incumbent protection.”
He also drew a historical parallel. When the OCC was created in the 1860s, its first mission was to make sure the reserve assets backing notes issued by national banks were of sound quality, a job he said stablecoin supervision brings the agency back to.
A federal charter would change where dollar issuers set up
In the European Union, MiCA already requires issuers of e-money tokens to be licensed, and Europe keeps its lead on that specific point. The US timetable shifts something else: where an issuer of dollar stablecoins will want to be based. Until a federal charter exists, the business is organized around state charters and bank partnerships, with the fragmentation that implies. Once the rule is published and applications open, an issuer will be able to seek a single charter valid nationwide.
For payments professionals, November is a planning milestone rather than an end point. It marks when the terms of doing business stop being negotiable, and when choosing an issuing partner no longer rests on guesswork.