Fintech Trade Body Pushes FDIC for Unified AML Framework Under GENIUS Act

The American Fintech Council submitted a letter to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on 5 August 2026 urging the agency to adopt a coordinated, risk-based approach to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing rules for stablecoin issuers. The submission responds to the FDIC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking under the GENIUS Act, which governs compliance standards for permitted payment stablecoin issuers.

The AFC, which represents over 150 fintech firms and banks, is the largest US trade association in its sector and regularly participates in federal rulemaking processes. The letter addresses how the FDIC will supervise Bank Secrecy Act and sanctions compliance for entities designated as PPSIs under the new legislation.

The council's central recommendation is regulatory alignment: it wants the FDIC to harmonise its supervisory expectations with existing requirements from Treasury and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network rather than imposing additional, potentially duplicative rules. The group argues that stablecoin issuers should be able to use enterprise-level compliance systems already designed to meet federal AML and CFT standards.

Phil Goldfeder, chief executive of the AFC, argued that coordination would balance security and clarity. "Effective regulation of the stablecoin ecosystem should protect the financial system against illicit activities while providing regulated entities with sufficiently clear standards to design, implement, and continuously improve sophisticated compliance programs," he said.

The letter also calls for technology neutrality in supervision, specifically highlighting blockchain analytics, wallet screening and transaction tracing as tools that should be permitted under a performance-based framework rather than mandated or prohibited by prescriptive rules. The AFC further asks for enforcement standards that distinguish material programme failures from isolated, fixable deficiencies — a distinction it considers important for firms navigating novel situations in a developing asset class.

On procedural protections, the council advocates for mandatory FinCEN consultation before the FDIC takes major AML or CFT supervisory action, alongside narrow safeguards preserving attorney-client privilege and attorney work product in regulatory communications.

The GENIUS Act, passed in 2026, created the first comprehensive federal licensing regime for payment stablecoins in the United States. Implementation through agency rulemaking has become the focal point for determining how strict the compliance regime will be. The AFC's letter reflects broader industry anxiety that multiple overlapping supervisors — the FDIC for bank-chartered issuers, state regulators for non-bank entities, FinCEN for BSA obligations and the Office of Foreign Assets Control for sanctions — could generate fragmented and inconsistent demands.

That concern has historical support. The compliance infrastructure for digital-asset firms in the US has been built incrementally, with companies receiving inconsistent guidance depending on their charter and business model. For stablecoin issuers handling transaction volumes and counterparty diversity comparable to mid-tier banks, the cost of duplicative compliance obligations is substantial.

The AFC's position echoes arguments made by European stablecoin issuers engaging with the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, where proportionate, risk-based supervision became a recurring theme during the MiCA technical standards process. Whether the FDIC's final rule adopts that framing will send a strong signal about how aggressively the US intends to compete for regulated stablecoin activity.

The agency's decision on coordination and proportionality will influence where global stablecoin issuers choose to establish operations and how heavily they invest in US market infrastructure.