The Bank of Italy's vice director warned that multi-issuance stablecoins pose risks to EU financial stability and should be restricted to equivalent regulatory jurisdictions. A senior Bank of Italy official warned that stablecoins issued by multiple entities across different countries pose significant risks to the European Union’s financial system unless they are strictly limited to jurisdictions with equivalent regulatory standards. Speaking at the Economics of Payments Conference in Rome on Thursday, Chiara Scotti, vice director of the Bank of Italy, said multi-issuance stablecoins — digital tokens issued in several countries under a single brand — may increase liquidity but also bring “considerable legal, operational, liquidity and financial stability risks” if at least one issuer is outside the EU. “Although this architecture could enhance global liquidity and scalability, it poses significant legal, operational, liquidity and financial stability risks at EU level, particularly if at least one issuer is l...
Ron Morrow, head of payments at Canada’s central bank, called on regulators to pass a framework for stablecoins or be left behind. Canada’s central bank is calling for the country to establish a stablecoin regulatory framework to modernize the payment system and avoid falling behind other countries that are moving forward with such policies. “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you sit there,” Ron Morrow, the executive director of payments, supervision and oversight at the Bank of Canada, said in a speech Thursday at the Chartered Professional Accountants conference in Ottawa, Canada, a transcript of which was published on the central bank’s website. Morrow called on federal and provincial regulators to create a policy framework for stablecoins. “At the end of the day, for stablecoins to be seen as money, they need to be as safe and stable as the balance in your bank account,” Morrow said, adding: Read more
UK crypto and payments groups urged the Bank of England to drop plans to cap individual stablecoin holdings, claiming the move would be costly and hard to enforce. United Kingdom-based cryptocurrency industry advocacy groups called on the Bank of England not to proceed with plans to limit individual stablecoin holdings. In a November 2023 discussion paper, the bank floated setting individual caps on digital pounds between 10,000 British pounds ($13,558) and 20,000 pounds and asked for feedback on a possible lower limit of 5,000 pounds. According to a Monday Financial Times report, industry groups criticized the plan, saying it would be difficult and expensive to implement and could leave the UK lagging behind other jurisdictions. Read more
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey joins a growing list of European officials concerned with the rise of stablecoins. Bank of England (BOE) governor Andrew Bailey recently warned against banks issuing stablecoins, saying that the Bank of England should focus on tokenizing deposits instead. Stablecoins introduce systemic risks to banking institutions that could destabilize the entire financial system, causing sovereign governments to lose control over their currencies, the BOE official told The Sunday Times in an interview. He also added that the United Kingdom’s central bank should not adopt a central bank digital currency (CBDC) or otherwise seek to launch a centrally-managed digital fiat token. Read more
MiCA has had a limited impact on the adoption of compliant stablecoins in Europe, strengthening the need for the digital euro, Bank of Italy Governor Fabio Panetta said. Former European Central Bank (ECB) official and Governor of the Bank of Italy, Fabio Panetta, touted the digital euro as a key tool for controlling the risks of increasing cryptocurrency adoption. The Bank of Italy, on May 30, released an annual report with the governor’s concluding remarks on the state of the economy. Panetta said the European Union must move forward with the central bank digital currency (CBDC) project to maintain financial stability and meet demand for secure digital payments. “We would be remiss to think that the evolution of crypto-assets can be controlled only through rules and restrictions,” Panetta said, warning that crypto regulation alone cannot address the systemic risks posed by crypto, and that the digital euro would be key to addressing them. Read more