OCC head Jonathan Gould said Wednesday the agency will finalize its GENIUS Act stablecoin rules by November, racing to meet a Jan. 18 statutory deadline before the law takes effect in January 2027 after blowing past an earlier July target.

The 376-page proposal, released in February and open for comment through May, covers the full life cycle of a payment stablecoin, including reserves, redemption at par, liquidity, risk management, audits, custody and wind-downs.

Gould said the OCC expects to begin processing issuer applications in 2027 and reported an eightfold jump in digital-asset chartering activity versus the Biden administration.

The top U.S. banking regulator said it will finalize its rules for stablecoin issuers by November, moving to meet a fast-approaching deadline tied to the country’s landmark digital-dollar law.

Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which charters and supervises national banks, outlined the timeline Wednesday at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, an event hosted by SALT in Jackson. He said the agency is working at a rapid pace and expects to publish a final rule by November as it weighs feedback gathered from the crypto industry.

“We are very intent on moving quickly and getting a final rule out by November so that we will be able to start processing applications within the new year,” Gould said.

The rules will implement the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin framework President Donald Trump signed in July 2025 and the first comprehensive U.S. federal law governing payment stablecoins — digital tokens designed to hold a steady value, typically pegged to the dollar, that are widely used in crypto trading and payments. The law directs federal regulators to write the details governing payment stablecoins, and it takes effect in January 2027. Agencies face a statutory deadline of Jan. 18 to have regulations in place, and the OCC has already missed an earlier July target, a delay that has fueled concern about lingering regulatory uncertainty.

The OCC’s proposal, a 376-page draft released in February and opened for public comment through May, addresses the full life cycle of a payment stablecoin. The framework sets out requirements for reserve assets, redemption at par, liquidity, risk management, audits, custody and supervision, along with procedures for winding down a failed issuer. Anti-money-laundering and sanctions requirements were carved out into separate rulemaking coordinated with the Treasury Department.

Gould said the agency expects to begin processing applications from stablecoin issuers starting in 2027. He also pointed to a surge of interest in federal oversight, saying digital-asset chartering activity has increased eightfold compared with the Biden administration, and he criticized the prior administration’s approach to crypto risk as shortsighted.

The stakes for the industry are significant. Under the GENIUS Act, only permitted issuers will be able to offer payment stablecoins to Americans, and Treasury has separately proposed rules that would bar platforms from selling noncompliant stablecoins to U.S. customers once the law’s provisions take effect. The largest stablecoins by circulation are Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, both used heavily in crypto trading and payments worldwide.

The OCC did not provide a firm date within November for the final rule, nor detail how the final text would differ from the February draft.