OCC Final Rules

Key dates

2025-07-18

The GENIUS Act was enacted.

2026-10-21

The OCC published the final rule and related application, waiver and reporting materials.

2027-01-18 Deadline

The GENIUS Act and OCC final rule take effect; U.S. payment stablecoin issuance generally requires permitted payment stablecoin issuer status, and a substantially complete application must be pending by this date to support eligibility for an OCC waiver request.

2027-01-25

Proposed first weekly OCC reporting date, subject to OMB approval of the information collection.

2027-03-31

Proposed first quarterly OCC reporting date, subject to OMB approval of the information collection.

Suggested considerations

• Firms seeking permitted payment stablecoin status should consider mapping their licensing strategy, corporate structure and applicable OCC pathway under 12 CFR part 15 before 2027-01-18.
• Existing U.S. issuers that need transitional relief should consider submitting a substantially complete OCC application on or before 2027-01-18 and preparing a written waiver request promptly after the OCC begins accepting applications and waiver requests.
• Applicants should consider documenting business plans, management, reserve assets, issuance and redemption processes, capital and liquidity, risk management, third-party and shared-services arrangements, audit functions and compliance governance in the application package.
• Issuers should consider validating reserve composition, one-to-one backing, liquidity, concentration, counterparty exposure, stress-testing and redemption controls against the final rule rather than relying on the proposal's reserve assumptions.
• Issuers should consider testing operational capacity to process redemptions within two business days and to notify the OCC within 24 hours when the 10% redemption-demand trigger is reached.
• Issuers and distribution partners should consider reviewing stablecoin rewards, yield, rebate and promotional arrangements on a transaction-by-transaction basis because pre-existing programs are not automatically grandfathered and the final rule provides no general safe harbor.
• Covered firms should consider establishing governance for audits, reporting, examination responses, custody controls, foreign-issuer oversight and potential approval revocation or rescission.
• Compliance teams should track the separate Treasury-coordinated BSA, AML and OFAC rulemaking and avoid treating this final rule as the complete GENIUS Act compliance framework.

What changed

The final rule applies to national banks and their subsidiaries, federal savings associations and their subsidiaries, federal branches and their subsidiaries, federal qualified payment stablecoin issuers, foreign payment stablecoin issuers, and state qualified payment stablecoin issuers over which the OCC has regulatory or enforcement authority.

Key dates

2025-07-18

The GENIUS Act was enacted.

2026-10-21

The OCC published the final rule, application and waiver guidance, and revised proposed reporting forms.

2027-01-18 Deadline

The GENIUS Act and OCC final rule take effect; U.S. payment-stablecoin issuance generally requires permitted payment stablecoin issuer approval, and existing issuers seeking a waiver generally must have a pending substantially complete OCC application by this date.

2027-01-25 Deadline

Proposed effective report date for the weekly reporting form, subject to Office of Management and Budget approval.

2027-03-31 Deadline

Proposed effective report date for the quarterly reporting form, subject to Office of Management and Budget approval.

Suggested considerations

• Firms considering U.S. payment-stablecoin issuance should assess whether they qualify as a permitted payment stablecoin issuer, a federal qualified issuer, a state-qualified issuer subject to OCC authority, or a foreign issuer within the rule's scope.
• Existing U.S. issuers should consider preparing a substantially complete OCC application and evaluating whether a waiver request is needed by January 18, 2027; the OCC may grant waivers for up to 12 months beginning on that date, generally where an eligible application is pending.
• Applicants should prepare documentation covering the business plan, management, reserve assets, issuance and redemption processes, risk management, capital and liquidity, shared services, BSA/AML/OFAC controls, third-party risk, enterprise risk, compliance risk, and audit functions.
• Issuers should map reserve assets to the final rule's 1:1 backing, daily-liquidity, diversification, and counterparty-concentration requirements and establish controls capable of supporting generally timely redemption within two business days.
• Compliance and product teams should inventory interest, yield, cashback, loyalty, referral, and exchange rewards arrangements involving payment stablecoins and document the business purpose and consideration supporting each payment, because the OCC has not provided a categorical safe harbor and will apply the statutory prohibition case by case.
• Issuers should design weekly reserve and payment-stablecoin activity reporting and quarterly reports of condition and income, subject to confirming the final OMB-approved forms and effective reporting dates.
• Banks and other OCC-supervised custodians should review custody arrangements, segregation and control frameworks, third-party dependencies, and contractual allocation of responsibility for stablecoin and reserve-asset custody.
• Firms should track the separate Treasury, FinCEN, OFAC, Federal Reserve, and FDIC implementation work because the OCC final rule does not complete BSA, AML, or sanctions requirements and is only one component of the GENIUS Act framework.

What changed

New 12 CFR part 15 establishes requirements for permitted payment stablecoin issuers, foreign payment stablecoin issuers subject to OCC authority, certain state-qualified issuers, and specified custody activities conducted by OCC-supervised entities. The framework covers issuer activities, reserve assets, redemption, risk management, audits, reports, examinations, supervision, custody, applications and registrations, state-to-federal transitions, foreign-issuer supervision, approval revocation or rescission, and capital and operational backstops.

Key dates

2026-08-27

OCC and FDIC issued the joint final rule through OCC Bulletin 2026-40. The bulletin applies to all OCC-supervised banks; it does not state the Federal Register publication date, effective date, or a firm compliance deadline.

Suggested considerations

• Firms should identify the final rule’s Federal Register publication and effective date, because the OCC bulletin itself does not state either date or a compliance deadline, and should monitor OCC and FDIC implementation guidance before relying on any transition treatment.
• Compliance teams may wish to inventory open MRAs, supervisory recommendations, enforcement matters, and examination findings and map each item to the final rule’s material-financial-risk, DIF-risk, actual-violation, or already-caused-harm criteria.
• Firms should consider separating board-level MRA remediation obligations from discretionary management responses to supervisory observations and documenting why a weakness is treated under one category rather than another.
• Risk and compliance functions may wish to enhance evidence files supporting assessments of likelihood, materiality, current and reasonably foreseeable conditions, and impacts on capital, asset quality, earnings, liquidity, and market-risk sensitivity.
• Banks should consider documenting how supervisory requirements and remediation plans are tailored to asset size, complexity, activities, capital structure, and other financial-risk factors, particularly where the institution has heightened systemic, concentration, liquidity, or operational complexity.
• Legal and compliance teams may wish to distinguish actual violations of banking or banking-related laws and regulations from prudential weaknesses, because an actual violation can support an MRA without separately satisfying the prudent-operation and material-risk test.
• Boards and senior management should consider reviewing governance procedures so that MRAs receive required escalation and tracking while supervisory observations are clearly identified as non-binding potential enhancements.
• Firms should consider preparing a process for requesting and retaining the objective facts and reasoning underlying an MRA or unsafe-and-unsound-practice determination, as the rule requires examiners to share that basis.

What changed

An unsafe or unsound practice is now defined as a practice, act, or failure to act that is contrary to generally accepted standards of prudent operation and either is likely, if continued, to materially harm the bank’s financial condition or present a material risk of loss to the Deposit Insurance Fund, or has already materially harmed the bank’s financial condition. “Likely” requires more than a merely possible risk; relevant financial-condition effects include impacts on capital, asset quality, earnings, liquidity, and sensitivity to market risk.

Key dates

2026-08-27

OCC and FDIC issued the final rule and OCC published Bulletin 2026-40 describing its application to OCC-supervised banks.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to map existing and anticipated MRAs, enforcement commitments, supervisory recommendations, and examination findings against the new material-financial-risk and actual-violation criteria.
• Firms should consider separating board-level corrective-action items from nonbinding supervisory observations and documenting why each issue does or does not meet the MRA threshold.
• Risk and compliance functions may wish to update issue-taxonomy and escalation procedures to assess impacts on capital, asset quality, earnings, liquidity, sensitivity to market risk, and the Deposit Insurance Fund.
• Banks should consider retaining objective evidence and documented reasoning supporting materiality assessments, including institution-specific factors such as asset size, complexity, activities, and capital structure.
• Management and boards may wish to review outstanding policies, process, and documentation findings to determine whether they remain mandatory remediation matters, are better treated as supervisory observations, or independently constitute violations of banking or banking-related law.
• OCC-supervised banks should monitor the related examination guidance and assess whether planned lookbacks, independent-consultant requirements, or suspicious-activity review scopes are affected by the revised supervisory approach described in industry reporting.
• Firms should track Federal Register publication and calculate the 60-day effective date once publication occurs; the August 27, 2026 announcement date is not itself the effective date.

What changed

An unsafe or unsound practice is now defined as a practice, act, or failure to act that is contrary to generally accepted standards of prudent operation and either, if continued, is likely to materially harm the bank’s financial condition or present a material risk of loss to the Deposit Insurance Fund, or has already materially harmed the bank’s financial condition. Relevant financial-condition impacts include capital, asset quality, earnings, liquidity, and sensitivity to market risk; reputation concerns unrelated to financial condition are excluded.