As the U.S. Senate Banking Committee opened its routine hearing on oversight of the bank regulators on Thursday, a flurry of crypto topics had already dominated the conversation, including a significant stablecoin policy proposal from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
On the eve of the U.S. banking watchdogs’ testimony to lawmakers, the OCC issued a proposal to address most of its rulemaking requirements under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, the stablecoin law signed last year. The package of policies would institute standards for U.S. stablecoin issuers, such as their reserve requirements, how the firms will maintain custody of assets, how customers will redeem their tokens and the process by which businesses will seek registration.
“The OCC has given thoughtful consideration to a proposed regulatory framework in which the stablecoin industry can flourish in a safe and sound manner,” said OCC chief Jonathan Gould in a statement. His agency noted that it still has some other rules on money-laundering and sanctions protections to work out with the wider Treasury Department.
While Gould and other regulators were set to testify before the senators, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman had already posted her testimony, which opened with discussion of the GENIUS Act and digital assets.
She said the Fed is “working with the other banking regulators to develop regulations that include capital and liquidity for stablecoin issuers as required by the GENIUS Act.”
Bowman, who leads banking regulation for the Fed, said it’s trying to “provide clarity regarding the treatment of digital assets to ensure that the banking system is well placed to support digital asset activities.” That includes, she said, “clarity on the permissibility of activities and willingness to provide regulatory feedback on proposed new use cases.”
The crypto-supporting sentiments from the OCC and Fed follow years in which the U.S. banking agencies maintained a more hesitant posture about this emerging corner of the financial sector, seeking to keep banks from leaping in without close approval from their government watchdogs.
But the banking panel’s ranking Democrat, Senator Elizabeth Warren, maintained her sharp criticism of that new friendliness on Thursday, saying she’s demanding answers about the rapid approval of Erebor Bank for chartering by the OCC, according to a letter sent to regulators.
The backers of that bank, which is to be a tech-focused institution that offers digital asset products and services, “have been major donors to President Donald Trump, Vice President Vance, and the GOP,” Warren noted.
“Erebor would serve as the financial hub for an interrelated set of Silicon Valley firms owned by these billionaires and their friends,” she wrote in the letter, noting that the lawyer who submitted the bank’s charter application was soon hired by the OCC as a senior deputy comptroller. “If my inquiry reveals that Erebor’s national bank charter was not granted in accordance with law and regulation, and instead represented a corrupt political favor to the President’s billionaire supporters in Silicon Valley, it would have to be terminated.”
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Travis Hill also testified on Thursday. Under his watch, his agency was the first to begin advancing GENIUS Act proposals.
