Author: Zen, PANews
If the 2025 GENIUS Act was America’s constitutional moment for stablecoins, then this new regulatory draft released by the FDIC in April 2026 marks the official beginning of the enforcement era.
This week, the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) published a proposed rule in the Federal Register, establishing a comment period of nearly two months, ending on June 9. The rule provides clear restrictions and guidance on stablecoin issuance by banks and their fintech subsidiaries.
In simple terms, the FDIC is implementing the GENIUS Act, which was signed into law in 2025, by turning it into more specific and actionable operational guidelines and regulatory rules.
On what authority does the FDIC speak? The legitimate basis of regulatory power
To understand the weight of this draft, you must first understand what the FDIC is.
The FDIC, short for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, is an independent federal agency established by Congress. Its core responsibilities include insuring bank deposits, examining and supervising the safety and soundness of financial institutions, and managing the resolution of failed banks.
The FDIC directly regulates a broad category of state-chartered banks and savings institutions that are not members of the Federal Reserve System, and thus it already has the authority to establish rules regarding the safety and soundness, capital, liquidity, customer protection, and deposit insurance coverage of its regulated entities. In China, this corresponds to the functions of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.
Therefore, the FDIC also has certain regulatory authority to issue a draft guideline for stablecoins. If a bank or its subsidiary were to issue a new liability instrument tied to the U.S. payment system, the FDIC would naturally be concerned about risks related to capital, liquidity, redemption, custody, disclosure, and misleading sales practices.
The draft guidelines released this time primarily target stablecoin issuers within the FDIC-regulated banking system, particularly “Qualified Payment Stablecoin Issuers” (PPSIs) established by FDIC-regulated deposit institutions through subsidiaries, and also cover certain custody and safeguarding activities.
More critically, it is directly authorized by the GENIUS Act, which was signed into law by Trump on July 18, 2025, and explicitly requires the FDIC, OCC, Federal Reserve, NCUA, and the Treasury to establish implementing rules for payment stablecoin issuers within their respective jurisdictions. For the FDIC, this means it serves as the primary regulator for stablecoin subsidiaries of state non-member banks and state savings associations under its supervision.
This also clarifies its relationship with the existing stablecoin legislation: this draft is not new legislation, but rather one of the implementing rules of the GENIUS Act. The GENIUS Act is already the first comprehensive federal-level stablecoin legal framework in the United States, requiring that only “licensed payment stablecoin issuers” may legally issue such stablecoins in the U.S., and stipulating that bank subsidiaries are regulated by their primary bank regulator, while federally licensed non-bank issuers are primarily overseen by the OCC.
In December 2025, the FDIC issued its first draft guidance on “how bank subsidiaries can apply for approval to issue stablecoins.” The April 2026 draft further outlines the substantive requirements that approved entities must meet, including reserve backing, redemption protocols, capital adequacy, liquidity management, risk controls, custody arrangements, and disclosure obligations. It sends a clear signal to regulated banks: do not attempt to exploit gray areas between deposit insurance and tokenized deposits.
Six New Rules: From "1:1 Reserves" to "Prohibition of Interest Payments"
Looking specifically at this FDIC draft, the six most important sections define the rules of the game for bank-issued stablecoins.
First, reserve assets. The draft requires issuers to always back all circulating stablecoins with identifiable reserves at a minimum 1:1 ratio, and the value of these reserve assets must never fall below the total face value of outstanding stablecoins at any point in time. Issuers must also maintain records that link specific reserve assets to particular stablecoin brands.
The FDIC also proposed that if a single subsidiary issues multiple different branded stablecoins, each brand should, in principle, have a segregated, traceable, and separately recorded reserve pool, with no arbitrary commingling, to reduce the contagion risk of "one failure taking down the entire pool."
Second is the quality, liquidity, and convertibility of reserves. The draft not only requires issuers to hold identifiable reserve assets at a ratio of at least 1:1, but also emphasizes that these reserves must be highly liquid to enable timely conversion into usable funds during redemption pressure. Regarding the use of reserve assets, the FDIC intends to explicitly restrict arrangements such as re-pledging or reusing reserve assets.
For repurchase arrangements based on short-term U.S. Treasury securities, the draft proposes a conditional permitting framework. For reverse repurchase arrangements, feedback is still being sought on how to define excess collateralization and whether more specific constraints are needed, and no fully defined restrictions have yet been established.
Third is the strict mandate for redemption on a "T+2" basis. The FDIC requires issuers to publicly disclose their redemption policies, including the redemption timeline, redemption process, minimum redemption amount, and more. The draft proposes defining "timely redemption" as completion no later than two business days after the request is submitted.
Moreover, any discretionary restrictions on timely redemptions can only be approved by the FDIC, not determined by the issuer itself. The minimum redemption threshold cannot exceed one stablecoin, ensuring equal access for retail investors.
Fourth is the “positive and negative list” of activities. The FDIC limits the “core activities” of payment stablecoin issuers to issuing, redeeming, managing reserves, and limited custody services. Other activities are permitted only if they directly support these core activities, and whether an activity qualifies as “direct support” is subject to regulatory interpretation.
The draft also explicitly outlines several important restrictions:
- Must not imply that its stablecoin is backed by the credit of the U.S. government.
- Must not imply FDIC insurance coverage
- You must not pay interest or returns to users solely because they hold or use stablecoins.
- Issuers are prohibited from lending to customers to purchase their own stablecoin, as this would introduce leverage into the "1:1 reserve" backing.
Fifth is the flexible management of capital, liquidity, and risk. Rather than simply adopting standard bank capital ratios, the FDIC proposes a more flexible framework. PPSIs must use CET1 and AT1 capital instruments as the foundation for regulatory capital and establish processes for self-assessment and meeting capital requirements. If a PPSI’s business is more complex or carries higher risk, the FDIC may impose higher capital requirements or additional contingency measures. The FDIC believes that if an issuer engages only in the narrowest scope of issuance and redemption activities, capital requirements may be lower. However, as additional activities are undertaken, the importance of capital increases.
Sixth, the weekly and monthly reporting requirements for disclosure. The draft requires issuers to disclose the composition of reserve assets on their official website on a monthly basis, while simultaneously making redemption policies and related fees publicly available. Issuers must also submit confidential weekly reports to the FDIC. More importantly, monthly reserve disclosures are not solely issued by the issuer; the draft further requires a registered public accounting firm to review the monthly report and issue a written attestation. Additionally, the issuer’s CEO and CFO must submit certifications to the FDIC affirming the accuracy of the monthly report. By linking public disclosure, third-party verification, and executive accountability, the draft significantly raises the standards for ongoing compliance and the authenticity of information.
More importantly, the FDIC explicitly states that deposits held in banks as reserves for stablecoins should not be claimed by stablecoin holders under a “pass-through deposit insurance” basis. At the same time, it clarifies that if a “tokenized deposit”本质上 meets the definition of a “deposit,” it will not be treated differently under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act merely because it is on-chain or tokenized. In other words, stablecoins are not deposit insurance products, but genuine “tokenized deposits” may still qualify as deposits and remain protected by insurance.
How significant is the impact of the new regulations?
This draft is currently only a proposed rule, not a final effective rule, and it does not apply to all stablecoin projects—only to banks and subsidiaries within the FDIC’s regulatory framework and their related custody activities. In its economic analysis, the FDIC estimates that, in the initial years, only 5 to 30 FDIC-supervised institutions may apply for and receive approval to issue coins through subsidiaries, with a similar number—on the order of dozens—providing related custody services.
However, in terms of regulatory impact, this proposed rule is highly significant. First, it represents the true implementation of the GENIUS Act, transforming abstract legislation into enforceable regulation. Additionally, together with the OCC’s parallel rule proposed in February and the Treasury’s AML/sanctions rule proposed in April, it is helping to construct a comprehensive federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. Finally, it will significantly influence the future competitive landscape, giving an advantage to institutions with stronger compliance capabilities, capital resources, and banking infrastructure over the “light-asset, marketing- and yield-subsidy-dependent” crypto-native model.
In particular, this draft's prohibitions on paying interest or returns to token holders, constraints on the reuse of reserves, and strict limitations on references to FDIC insurance may enhance the relative advantages of bank-affiliated issuers and those with strong compliance capabilities.
Therefore, this draft cannot be broadly characterized as a major crypto利好; rather, it represents a crucial step by the U.S. in refining regulations around stablecoins into specific regulatory language. From a legislative standpoint, it ranks below the GENIUS Act, but from an operational perspective, it is far more significant than political rhetoric.
Traditional banking giants with licenses, substantial capital, and the ability to endure low profits and strict audits are about to enter their rightful domain of compliant stablecoins. The U.S. stablecoin landscape is poised for new upheaval.