Bank Regulatory

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On May 12, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a significant interpretive letter confirming that Fidelity Digital Assets, National Association (the recently converted national trust bank formerly known as Fidelity Digital Assets Service, LLC) is not required to hold state money transmitter licenses to conduct its federally authorized activities. The OCC concluded that the National Bank Act preempts any state money transmitter licensing requirement as applied to a national bank.

Federal regulators recently took two coordinated steps that significantly shift expectations for how lenders and banks treat non‑work authorized individuals and their employers. On June 5, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) issued a formal statement on how immigration status should factor into ability‑to‑repay determinations under the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and Regulation Z. On the same day, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), jointly with the federal banking agencies and in coordination with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), released a detailed advisory on fraud, payroll schemes, and money laundering risks associated with the unlawful employment of non-work authorized persons, including specific guidance regarding the use of Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) and Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs).

On May 22, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Board of Directors approved a notice of proposed rulemaking to extend Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and sanctions compliance standards to the permitted payment stablecoin issuers (PPSIs) it supervises under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (the GENIUS Act).  These GENIUS Act BSA and sanctions compliance rules for PPSIs were recently proposed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), as we discussed in a prior advisory.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is reportedly moving to give community banks more time between examinations under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the federal anti-redlining statute that shapes how banks serve low- and moderate-income communities. As reported by Bloomberg Law, based on a May 15 supervisory memorandum obtained by the publication, the OCC has revised its exam cycle expectations for community and small regional banks that demonstrate strong CRA performance.

On April 7, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Board approved its second notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) implementing the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act). This second set of FDIC proposed regulations would establish prudential standards for FDIC-supervised permitted payment stablecoin issuers (PPSIs) and FDIC-supervised stablecoin custodians, and it would update the capital and deposit insurance frameworks for the bank parents of those issuers and for stablecoin reserves and tokenized deposits.

On May 6, the American Bankers Association (ABA), joined by nearly every state bankers association, sent the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury), a follow‑on request for more time to comment on Treasury’s GENIUS Act “broad‑based principles” proposed rule for determining whether a state stablecoin regime is “substantially similar” to the federal framework (RIN 1505‑AC90).

The federal banking agencies have finalized a significant recalibration of the Community Bank Leverage Ratio (CBLR) framework. In a joint final rule, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) (collectively, the agencies) have lowered the CBLR requirement from 9% to 8% and lengthened the grace period for certain temporary breaches of the CBLR criteria. The rule becomes effective July 1, 2026, and is intended to deliver more meaningful regulatory relief while preserving supervisory comfort with capital adequacy and safety and soundness.

On February 25, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released a 376‑page notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to implement the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act for entities under its jurisdiction. The proposed rule would create a comprehensive framework for “payment stablecoin” issuers supervised by the OCC, foreign payment stablecoin issuers accessing the U.S. market, and certain custody activities by OCC‑regulated banks. The NPRM was published in the Federal Register on March 2, with the 60-day comment period ending on May 1, 2026. The NPRM also poses more than 200 specific questions for public comment on definitions, activities, reserves, liquidity, and other key design choices.