GENIUS Act Stablecoin Rule: OCC Finalises Regulations as Rewards Face Case-by-Case Review

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has issued a final rule to implement the GENIUS Act, the 2025 law that created the first federal framework for dollar-backed payment stablecoins. Announced on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, the rule is the first final regulation from a federal banking regulator under the act, and it takes effect alongside the law on 18 January 2027.

The most closely watched detail concerns stablecoin rewards. The OCC said it would not assume that existing rewards programmes, such as those offered on major crypto exchanges, comply with the GENIUS Act’s ban on issuers paying yield, and that it would judge arrangements case by case, CoinDesk reported.

What Does the OCC’s GENIUS Act Rule Cover?

According to the OCC, the final rule sets requirements for permitted payment stablecoin issuers and foreign payment stablecoin issuers under its jurisdiction, as well as for certain custody activities carried out by OCC-supervised banks and trust companies. It covers all the regulations the OCC must write under the GENIUS Act except those on the Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money laundering and sanctions, which will be handled in a separate rulemaking with the Treasury Department.

• Regulator: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an independent bureau of the US Treasury.
• Law: Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.
• Effective date: 18 January 2027.
• Scope: issuer requirements, reserves, redemption, risk management and custody.
• Not included: anti-money laundering and sanctions rules, to follow separately.

The agency said it had received hundreds of comments on its proposal from crypto companies, community banks, trade groups and academics. It will announce separately when it starts accepting applications and waiver requests from prospective issuers.

What Did Officials Say?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent compared the law to the National Currency Act of 1863. “Just as President Abraham Lincoln’s National Currency Act of 1863 established a national framework for bank-issued currency, the GENIUS Act establishes a federal framework for payment stablecoins in the digital age,” he said in the OCC’s announcement.

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould said: “We are providing a clear, practical framework for payment stablecoin innovation, with strong standards for reserve backing, redemption, and risk management.”

What Happens to Stablecoin Rewards Programmes?

The GENIUS Act bars issuers from paying holders anything “solely in connection with the holding, use, or retention” of a payment stablecoin. Exchanges have nonetheless offered rewards on stablecoin balances; CoinDesk cited PayPal’s 4% return on PYUSD, 3.75% on USDC for Coinbase One members and up to 4.5% on USDG for Kraken+ subscribers.

In its rule, the OCC said it “declines to presume that rewards programs that predated the GENIUS Act comply with the GENIUS Act”, according to CoinDesk. It also dropped the “rebuttable presumptions” from its earlier proposal that would have listed activities assumed to breach the ban, and said it would “apply the language of the statute to the facts and circumstances of any particular arrangement”.

The agency did, however, suggest that the word “solely” matters: a reward that might be paid at least in part for other reasons could fall outside the ban, CoinDesk reported. In practice, that leaves firms with less certainty than some had hoped and points to supervisory decisions shaping the market over time.

Why Does This Matter for Banks?

Banks have argued that stablecoin rewards threaten the deposits at the heart of their business, and lobbied for tighter limits in the separate Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. That bill failed to advance in a key Senate vote last month, CoinDesk reported. The OCC said that “unless and until such legislation passes”, it must implement the yield ban as written. We looked at the wider rulemaking picture in SEC Comment Period Closes as Crypto Rules Advance Without CLARITY Act.

What About Reserves?

The OCC said it had changed its approach to reserves between the proposal and the final rule, adopting “a principles-based approach” to diversification and concentration, backed by requirements to maintain a minimum amount of daily liquidity and avoid excessive exposure to a single counterparty, according to CoinDesk.

What Comes Next?

Other agencies are still writing their own GENIUS Act rules. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have proposals at various stages, and CoinDesk reported that it is unlikely all of the required rules will be in place by January. For holders, the near-term questions are whether popular rewards products survive OCC scrutiny and how quickly new bank-issued stablecoins arrive.

• OCC application window: date to be announced.
• Other regulators: FDIC, Federal Reserve and Treasury rules still in progress.
• Rewards: case-by-case review of existing programmes.
• Effective date: 18 January 2027.

For market context, see our JPMorgan Bitcoin Forecast and the latest in our Crypto News section. This article is for information only and is not financial advice.

Featured image: US Treasury Building, Washington DC, by MeanieHyaena / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

Sources

• Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — OCC Advances U.S. Digital Asset Leadership with Final Rule to Implement GENIUS Act (21 October 2026).
• CoinDesk — OCC’s final rule to start fresh in weighing stablecoin rewards against GENIUS Act ban (21 October 2026).