Banking and Finance Law Daily Wrap Up, FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY—OCC targets November GENIUS Act rule as stablecoins shape digital-asset charter applications, (Aug 20, 2026)
Gould said 23 of 40 new charter applications in roughly the last 18 months involved digital asset activity.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency expects to issue a final GENIUS Act rule by November, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould said, highlighting the rising digital-asset activity in new bank charter applications. Comptroller Gould said payment stablecoins are becoming ordinary course in potential applicants’ business plans, making the remarks a near-term rulemaking and supervisory signal for charter applicants and institutions planning digital-asset activity.
The comments came during a fireside chat at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Gould discussed digital asset innovation and GENIUS Act next steps. OCC announced the excerpts from Gould’s discussion. The next step for the GENIUS Act rulemaking is a final rule by November. Gould said the OCC had been working on the rule even before the President signed the bill into law and would have a final rule out by November.
According to Gould, since President Trump took office, over approximately 18 months, the OCC had received 40 applications for new bank charters in the United States. Of those, 23 involved some form of digital asset activity, which Gould described as more than half of the applications and an eightfold increase compared with the four years of the Biden Administration. Gould called the shift a sign of “where the puck is going.”
Gould also used stablecoin language to describe the OCC’s supervisory role. “We are witnessing the birth of a new industry in the form of payment stablecoins,” he said. Looking ahead, Gould said the OCC was excited about stablecoins and its role in the regulatory and supervisory landscape. He also said Congress has tasked the OCC with a reserve-asset quality role for payment stablecoins analogous to the agency’s original 1860s mission for national bank-issued notes.
Gould said potential bank charter applicants are increasingly presenting business plans that involve and integrate payment stablecoins, tying the agency’s rulemaking timetable to the kinds of applications it is already seeing.
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