Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260901)

September 1, 2026September 3, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Tokenizing Central Bank Money on Public Blockchains (SSRN)

Ulrich Bindseil and Benjamin Duve posted a paper that explores the option of issuing central bank digital currency (CBDC) on public blockchains. The paper first reviews the main reservations, which include technical fragmentation, governance and operational risks, financial-stability concerns, and illicit-use and reputational risks. It then assesses how modern blockchain features may mitigate risks and evaluates the public policy objectives such issuance could advance. For example, central banks may mitigate chain-selection, operational, and illicit-use risks through formal admission criteria and strict issuer-controlled interoperability, plus embedded compliance architecture, and issuer-level control over minting, redemption, and freezing—paralleling existing stablecoin practice. Public rails would be markedly cheaper than proprietary infrastructure, while advancing monetary sovereignty, seigniorage, and financial stability. The authors conclude these risks may be manageable, proposing licensed, fully backed licensed stablecoins as a transitional alternative. [SSRN]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

FYI I produce a monthly digest of digital fiat currency (DFC) developments exclusively for the official sector (e.g., central banks, ministries of finance and international financial institution (e.g., the BIS, IMF, OECD, World Bank)) plus academics and firms that are active in the DFC space (commercial banks, technology providers, consultants, etc.). (DFCs include central bank digital currency (CBDC), stablecoins and tokenized deposits.) It goes out via email on the first business day of every month, and if you’re interested in being on the mailing list, please email me at john@kiffmeister.com.

Protected: Kiffmeister’s Digital Currency Monitor, August 2026

August 31, 2026August 31, 2026 ~ kiffmeister

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260829)

August 29, 2026August 29, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Ministers to Boost Innovation in Payments with New Objective for Bank of England (U.K. HMT)

The U.K’s HM Treasury (U.K. HMT) announced that the Bank of England will receive a new secondary objective supporting innovation in payment systems and digital money, subordinate to its primary financial-stability mandate. The change extends an approach already used for central counterparties and securities depositories under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 to systemic payment systems, including those using digital settlement assets such as stablecoins; the Bank will report annually to Parliament. Officials framed the move as necessary to keep pace with technologies like tokenization and distributed ledger technology while preserving the U.K.’s standing in financial services. Implementation requires amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Bill, next debated in the Lords on September 7-9, 2026. [U.K. HMT]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260828)

August 28, 2026August 28, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Russia’s Digital Ruble Goes Live on September 1 (Bank of Russia)

The large-scale rollout of the digital ruble will begin on September 1, 2026, when customers of the largest Russian banks may use the retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) through a single wallet accessible in participating banks’ mobile applications. The Bank of Russia will initially require major banks and merchants with annual revenues exceeding ₽120 million to support the digital ruble, with broader bank and merchant obligations phased in through September 2028. Firms with annual revenues below ₽5 million are exempt from acceptance requirements. The arrangement avoids interbank transfers of digital-ruble balances: users can fund the wallet from conventional bank accounts up to ₽300,000 rubles per month, make unrestricted person-to-person transfers, and pay merchants without fees. A universal merchant QR code will present digital-ruble payment alongside the Faster Payments System and other available methods. [Bank of Russia]

Regulating Stablecoin Issuance: Permissible Entities and Activities (BIS)

The BIS published a paper by Currat, Ehrentraud and Ocampo that provides a comparative analysis of the regulatory frameworks for stablecoin issuers across the European Union, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. It finds that approaches differ significantly, particularly in terms of the types of entities allowed to issue them and the scope of activities permitted beyond core issuance. Stablecoin frameworks generally limit issuers to a core set of functions such as issuance, redemption and reserve management, but they differ in how far issuers may stray from them. Frameworks that allow banks to issue under existing prudential regimes tend to permit a broader range of activities, as their regulatory framework already mitigates associated risks. In constrast, bespoke regimes for stablecoin issuers impose stricter limits. These activity restrictions apply to the issuing entity rather than the group. For banks, consolidated supervision already constrains the relocation of activities to affiliates; for non-banks, no equivalent group-wide framework applies, and restrictions can be circumvented with corporate structuring. [BIS]

First Fully Onchain Repo Transaction Completed Using a Sovereign Digital Bond (Businesswire)

Virtu Financial, M1X Global, and Tradeweb completed the first fully onchain repo transaction using a sovereign digital bond, USDM1, as collateral on the Canton Network. USDM1, natively issued by the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) under New York law as a Brady-bond-style instrument backed 1:1 by short-dated US Treasuries, functioned as collateral with atomic settlement across securities, cash, and repurchase legs, completing a full cycle in under 10 minutes. Unlike prior onchain repo demonstrations using digital cash or off-chain collateral, this combined natively issued sovereign collateral with full onchain settlement. The structure claims favorable Basel 3.1 risk-weighting versus stablecoins or tokenized funds, and supports ISDA/GMRA netting. However, USDM1 is being offered and sold solely outside the United States in reliance on Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act. [Businesswire]

Marshall Islands MEC Partnering With Lomalo to Expand Electricity Payment Options (MEC)

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) Marshalls Energy Company (MEC) will enable prepaid electricity (“Cash Power”) purchases through Lomalo’s mobile wallet from August, supplementing existing online purchases through MEC’s website. Verified users link a meter number, buy credit in the app, and receive a token for manual entry into the existing meter. Registered meters receive a $10 introductory credit. The arrangement embeds an essential-utility payment use case in Lomalo, a mobile wallet operated with the Ministry of Finance, Banking and Postal Services. Lomalo wallet-to-wallet transfers are made via blockchain-based interest-paying USDM1 sovereign digital bonds pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by equivalent values of short-term U.S. Treasury Bills. Lomalo’s and USDM1’s flagship use case is distributing ENRA, the RMI’s universal basic income (UBI) program. [MEC]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260827)

August 27, 2026August 27, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Meeting the Challenge of Correspondent Bank Relationship Withdrawals in fully Dollarized Microstates (SSRN)

I have just completed a first draft of a paper that examines emerging digital financial infrastructure and instruments as potential complements to the standard prescriptions aimed at mitigating the domestic financial system risks risks of correspondent banking relationship (CBR) withdrawal in officially dollarized microstates. Such microstates surrender the monetary autonomy of a central bank in exchange for the stability of a foreign currency, and in doing so make their domestic financial systems dependent on CBRs that global banks are increasingly unwilling to maintain. The existing IMF and World Bank literature treats CBR withdrawal primarily as a cross-border payments problem, and its prescriptions are addressed to that dimension. This paper assesses the capacity of emerging digital financial infrastructure and instruments to sustain domestic financial system functionality independent of a CBR, and the extent to which they may allow governments to recapture economic benefits analogous in some respects to the seigniorage that dollarization forgoes. Comments please! [SSRN]

Tokenized Deposits Could Affect Bank Liquidity, Maturity Transformation (Dallas Fed)

The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (Dallas Fed) published an article that claims that widespread tokenized-deposit adoption could erode banks’ maturity-transformation capacity and increase liquidity needs, in the context of real-time payments, stablecoin competition, and emerging bank-led on-chain deposit models. By making deposits more transferable and rate-sensitive, tokenization could shorten their expected life and raise deposit betas, reducing the effective duration that supports longer-term lending. The authors estimate that deposits support roughly 80% of aggregate bank duration exposure; a 10% reduction in deposit life or increase in rate sensitivity could materially reduce capacity or require more term funding, raising credit costs. Faster outflows could also increase demand for reserves and Treasuries. [Dallas Fed]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260822)

August 22, 2026August 22, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Kiffmeister’s #DFC Weekly Digest

FYI although I call this a *daily* digest my intent is to only post when there’s something substantive to post, and it has been a very quiet week! Maybe it’s just the summer doldrums? However, if you’re interested in digital fiat currency (DFC) news that doesn’t make the “Daily” cut, every Saturday I post a weekly digest here: Kiffmeister’s #DFC Weekly Digest.

Meanwhile, here is some news that did make the Daily Digest cut:

Proposed Rules on Who Can Legally Sell Stablecoins in United States (U.S. Treasury)

The U.S. Treasury has proposed rules implementing Section 3 of the GENIUS Act that define when a payment stablecoin is “issued,” “offered,” or “sold” in the United States, thereby determining licensing and market-access obligations. Issuance by an unlicensed person is generally prohibited from January 18, 2027; foreign issuers must be capable of complying with U.S. lawful orders and reciprocal jurisdictional arrangements; and, from July 18, 2028, U.S.-facing digital-asset service providers generally may offer only stablecoins issued by licensed issuers. The proposal operationalizes the Act’s territorial and intermediary-facing boundaries, making its definitions consequential for issuer structuring, offshore access, platform compliance, and the effective scope of federal/state stablecoin licensing. [U.S. Treasury]

How to Regulate Stablecoins -Exploring the Debatable Land between Securities and Payment Regulation (SSRN)

Simon Gleeson proposes that U.K. stablecoin regulation should treat fiat-backed stablecoins primarily as payment instruments, not securities, because applying investment-market rules to their circulation is functionally incompatible with their intended money-like use. He locates the problem in a regulatory boundary: securities law restricts retail acquisition and intermediation, whereas payments regulation principally governs the resilience, conduct and competition of core payment providers. Simon argues that legal classification should turn on economic function and actual use, not token form or origin. The central unresolved issues are whether stablecoin custody can accommodate deposit-like title transfer, how broadly “arranging” captures software and infrastructure providers, and how financial-promotion, advice and arranging rules overlap—creating material uncertainty for UK-facing firms. [SSRN]
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=7294080

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260815)

August 15, 2026August 15, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

KPMG U.S. Unqualified Audit Opinion on Tether’s 2025 Financial Statements (Tether)

Tether reported that KPMG U.S. issued an unqualified opinion on Tether International’s 2025 U.S. GAAP financial statements, marking a shift from periodic reserve attestations to a full financial-statement audit. The audit tested assets, token-related liabilities, transactions, systems, ownership evidence, valuations and counterparties. Tether says it included physical inspection of its gold bars and showed reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.814 billion at year-end. However, Tether did not release the statements themselves, so there is still much that is not known, such as accounting policies, reserve composition, and counterparty exposures. [Tether]

Use of Cash by Companies in the Euro Area in 2026 (ECB)

According to the latest European Central Bank (ECB) survey of 8,205 euro area consumer-facing merchants, cash acceptance has stabilized rather than continued its post-pandemic decline. 92% of firms with physical points of sale accepted cash in 2026, up from 90% in 2024, while 92% of current acceptors expect to continue over five years. Mobile-payment acceptance increased to 68% from 36% in 2024, alongside broadly unchanged card acceptance (88%). 25% of firms have taken measures to steer customers toward digital payments, and 48% with self-checkout terminals accept no cash at those terminals. Cash-access frictions—especially deposit/withdrawal inconvenience—are increasingly cited by non-acceptors, making cash infrastructure and cash-capable automation the principal unresolved constraints. [ECB]

Monetary Assurance, Payment Authority and the Payment Trust Architecture Design Space (Crunchfish)

Crunchfish published a paper arguing that every payment rests on two separable assurances—monetary assurance (sufficient value exists) and payment authority (the transaction is validly authorized)—whose representations can evolve independently, defining a “payment trust architecture design space”. It maps two dimensions: monetary assurance as “trusted assertion” (system-dependent) versus “trusted object” (independently verifiable), and payment authority as “trusted session” (session-bound) versus “trusted intent” (portable). Their four combinations yield distinct capabilities, generalized through the concept of “portable trust”. Crunchfish’s “governed offline” model is offered as the first practical instance. It gives monetary assurance and payment authority separate lifecycles: the former established in advance through reservation, the latter created locally as a “trusted intent” at payment. The broader principle is proposed as relevant to delegated and programmable payments, AI-agent transactions, and tokenized markets. [Crunchfish]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260806)

August 6, 2026August 6, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Bank of Korea Establishes Asset Tokenization Unit (Yonhap Infomax)

The Bank of Korea has reportedly established a dedicated asset tokenization unit under its Digital Currency Office as part of a regular mid‑year personnel reshuffle. The unit will lead efforts to tokenize assets, initially focusing on government bonds issued and distributed on a unified ledger integrating wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), bank deposits, and tokenized assets. This builds on “Project Hangang,” whose first real‑transaction phase ran from April to June 2025 and whose second phase will start in the second half of 2026 with more participating banks and enhanced functionality. The Korean government’s “2026 Second Half Economic Growth Strategy” also announces a government bond tokenization pilot linked to wholesale CBDC. [Yonhap Infomax]

Some backfilling of stablecoin stories I missed in June:

Open Standard Introduces Open USD Stablecoin (Open Standard)

[June 30, 2026] Open Standard announced Open USD, a consortium‑governed, zero‑fee stablecoin infrastructure for high‑volume, internet‑scale payments, responding to perceived economic and governance constraints in incumbent issuer models. The announcement highlights three pillars: free minting and redemption at any volume, pass‑through of reserve income to partner institutions net a small management fee, and governance via an independent company whose board is drawn from those partners. A large set of global banks, card networks, payment processors, technology platforms, and crypto firms have committed to integrate or support Open USD, positioning it as shared rails rather than proprietary product. The project’s significance lies in its attempt to reallocate stablecoin seigniorage and formalize multi‑firm governance, with unresolved issues around regulatory treatment, reserve composition, risk management, and actual decision‑making power distribution. [Open Standard]

Japan’s Three Largest Banks Aim for Joint Stablecoin Issue by March 2027 (Coin Desk)

[June 10, 2026] Japan’s three largest banking groups plan to issue a jointly branded yen stablecoin by March 2027, under a trust-bank structure backed by Japan’s Financial Services Agency and ruling party support for yen tokens. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Sumitomo ⁠Mitsui Financial Group (SMBC) and Mizuho Financial Group will form a council to design the operational framework, act as joint settlors, and appoint a trust bank or similar institution as trustee, indicating a balance-sheet-light, segregated-assets model aligned with Japan’s stablecoin law. This will create a regulated, large-scale yen stablecoin in a market currently dominated by U.S dollar tokens and where yen stablecoins remain below $50 million outstanding, with the leading token JPYC at around $18 million. Key unresolved issues are detailed operational design, legal treatment under evolving stablecoin rules, and how participation will extend beyond the initial three banks. [Coin Desk]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Protected: Kiffmeister’s Digital Currency Monitor, July 2026

August 2, 2026August 2, 2026 ~ kiffmeister

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260730)

July 30, 2026July 30, 2026 ~ kiffmeister

Project Agorá Real Value Testing (BIS)

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and Institute of International Finance (IIF) completed real value testing of their Project Agorá multi‑currency programmable platform for atomically settled wholesale cross‑border payments using wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) and tokenized commercial bank deposits. The trials involved 28 private-sector financial institutions and central banks executing approximately CHF 800,000 in transactions across 17 scenarios (corporate, interbank, intra-group, and payment‑versus‑payment) and six major currencies (CHF, EUR, GBP, JPY, KRW, USD) across Asia, Europe and North America, with end‑to‑end processing averaging 80 seconds from submission to settlement. The exercise focused on feasibility and operational performance under realistic conditions, highlighting improvements in speed, transparency, and status/routing visibility relative to existing correspondent banking architectures. However, still to be resolved are questions around legal treatment of tokenized claims, settlement finality, data‑sharing, and governance models. [BIS]

Are Stablecoins Efficient for Remittances? Evidence from a Mystery Shopping Exercise (Banca d’Italia)

Banca d’Italia published a paper that finds stablecoin-based remittances offer no systematic cost advantage over traditional channels, based on a mystery shopping exercise. Researchers transacting as ordinary customers transferred 200 USD Coin (USDC) across ten corridors linking Italy with Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the UAE, and Japan. Total costs ranged from 0.30% to nearly 9%, with the on-chain transfer contributing a marginal 0.4%; the on- and off-ramp fiat-conversion steps, exchange fees, and funding method drove costs and duration. Speed depended on domestic payment infrastructure: instant-payment jurisdictions (Brazil’s PIX, Italy’s TIPS) settled end-to-end under 20 minutes, while standard bank transfers extended settlement to one or two days. Regulatory design shaped operator availability and feasibility. However, cross-corridor comparability is confounded by Argentina’s parallel exchange rates and single-stablecoin, and single-transaction scope limits generalization. [Banca d’Italia]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.