Banking associations are urging regulators to pause the rollout of the GENIUS Act’s stablecoin oversight framework, citing concerns that multiple federal bodies are advancing rules too rapidly for coherent implementation.

Key points to understand:
— U.S. financial groups are requesting an extension of the comment period for several GENIUS Act stablecoin regulations until the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency completes its own framework.
— Multiple banking coalitions assert that Treasury and FDIC initiatives rely on an unfinished OCC rule.

As crypto industry regulatory efforts increasingly intersect with traditional finance, a coalition of bank trade associations has petitioned the U.S. Treasury Department to extend the public comment window for implementing last year’s Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.

In correspondence sent this week to the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., U.S. bankers are requesting a 60-day extension for three GENIUS Act rule proposals until the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency concludes its own stablecoin regulatory push. The OCC’s framework for overseeing stablecoin issuers is critical to the finalization of rules being developed at the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), alongside related FDIC rulemaking.

Banking representatives argue that all these initiatives are «directly contingent on the OCC’s final framework,» and that the combined regulatory efforts, including pending proposals from the Federal Reserve and other agencies, «represent a body of regulatory work of extraordinary scope and complexity.»

The American Bankers Association and the Bank Policy Institute, among other banking organizations, stated that their feedback «will necessarily be more comprehensive, and therefore more useful to the agencies, if we have sufficient time to evaluate the proposed rules together and to evaluate each against the finalized OCC framework.»

The GENIUS Act is scheduled to take effect by 2027, though it is common for federal agencies to grant comment period extensions for complex regulations. The Treasury Department has not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the banking industry’s extension request.

These same banking groups are also engaged in a stablecoin-related dispute with the crypto industry that has already delayed the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act for months and may threaten its passage this year.

Decryptnews