The FDIC proposed a 191-page Genius Act stablecoin rule Tuesday, its second under the Act. It sets out requirements for reserve assets, redemptions of outstanding stablecoins, capital, permissible activities, and risk management for FDIC-supervised payment stablecoin issuers.
One provision will force custody banks to recalculate: deposits held as reserves backing a payment stablecoin won’t be insured on a pass-through basis. Tokenized deposits remain deposits under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act. That gap reprices custody risk across every FDIC-supervised institution that touches stablecoin reserves. The rule also addresses custodial and safekeeping services.
The same day, the FDIC joined the OCC and NCUA on a joint AML/CFT overhaul, the first rewrite since the Bank Secrecy Act passed in the 1970s. FDIC Chair Travis Hill said the aim is to stop penalizing banks for “foot faults” and end the “box checking” exam culture, shifting resources toward higher-risk customers and activities instead. FinCEN gets an enhanced supervisory role under the inter-agency proposal.
The Genius Act designated the OCC as the primary federal payment stablecoin regulator for many potential issuers. The OCC filed its own proposal in February. Both largely align.
For banks that have stayed on the sidelines, it’s clearer now: consistent rules across agencies, but no depositor backstop on reserves. Comments on the FDIC stablecoin proposal are due 60 days after Federal Register publication.
Marcus Webb