Category: Stablecoins

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260925)

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HKMA to Introduce Wholesale CBDC as Project EnsembleTX Settlement Asset (HKMA)

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is planning to make a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) available for interbank settlement of tokenized deposits as part of Project EnsembleTX, enabling 24/7 payments by around the end of 2026, and will continue to explore more use cases for tokenized deposits. The pilot, launched in November 2025, initially used the HKD real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system to settle the transactions. [HKMA]

ECB Assessing Feasibility of Interlinking TIPS with Brazil’s Pix (ECB)

The European Central Bank (ECB) will assess the feasibility of linking the Eurosystem’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) platform to Central Bank of Brazil’s Pix instant-payment system. A link could make payments between the euro area and Brazil faster and cheaper, extending the Eurosystem’s broader effort to connect TIPS with foreign instant-payment systems. However, technical, operational, legal and business arrangements remain to be evaluated. [ECB]

US FRB Proposes Rules for FRB-Regulated Stablecoin Issuers (FRB)

The U.S. Federal Reserve Board (FRB) proposed two rules to implement the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act for FRB-supervised payment stablecoin issuers: one governing issuance, reserves and supervision, and another governing applications by supervised banks. The first would require full backing with eligible liquid assets, including short-term Treasury bills, and set capital and risk-management standards; it would also regulate reserve-asset safekeeping and clarify permissible bank activities. The second would require applicants to provide a business plan and financial information and establish procedures for appeals and final decisions. Their final terms remain subject to comment, due 60 days after Federal Register publication. [FRB]

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260918)

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Digital Markets Clarity Act – Insolvency Safe Harbor (Credit Slips)

In a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, fourteen legal academics argued that section 702 of the proposed Digital Asset Market Clarity Act threatens financial stability by extending bankruptcy safe harbors to digital assets. The text posits a causal link between existing safe harbors and the 2008 financial crisis and claims the absence of such exemptions contained the 2023 failures of crypto-asset firms like FTX. However, the document acknowledges a confounding variable: digital assets in 2023 were not fully integrated into the broader financial system, which inherently limited systemic effects regardless of safe harbor applicability. Ultimately, the proposed provisions would inequitably place digital asset holders in a “preferred position” over standard commercial creditors like employees, suppliers, and tort claimants. [Credit Slips]

And some more backfilling of news that I missed…

Modernizing Palau’s Financial System: Opportunities and Risks (IMF)

[February 16, 2026] The IMF published a selected issues paper on the opportunities and risks of modernizing Palau’s financial system that included an analysis of the government’s planned “tokenized dollar” (TD) that follows up on the Palau Stablecoin proof-of-concept that concluded in June 2024. While intended as a 1:1 USD-backed stablecoin to improve payment efficiency, the analysis questions its use-case justification and operational viability. Adoption faces substantial barriers, including entrenched cash preferences, inadequate IT infrastructure, and a lack of commercial bank buy-in. Furthermore, the TD introduces severe systemic vulnerabilities, notably acute financial integrity risks, cybersecurity gaps, and privacy compromises on public ledgers. Crucially, managing the reserves creates considerable fiscal exposure, risking speculative attacks. Mitigating these threats requires rigorous regulatory frameworks and profound institutional capacity building. [IMF]

Palau President Whipps Proposes Tokenized Dollar Payment System (Island Times)

[July 14, 2025] Palau President Surangel S. Whipps Jr. submitted to Congress a Draft Digital Payment System Bill outlining a modernized national payment system involving a “tokenized dollar (TD)”. The proposal would place the Ministry of Finance in charge of issuance and administration, with each TD fully backed by U.S. dollars held in a government-controlled account and redeemable for cash. TD would circulate through digital wallets for payments to participating merchants and government agencies, with private providers permitted to support operations under ministry supervision. The bill provides for monthly reporting, regular audits, and data-protection commitments, while allowing adoption incentives for two years. This follows a Palau Stablecoin proof-of-concept that concluded in June 2024. [Island Times]

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260917)

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U.S. SEC Issues Innovation Exemption to Facilitate the Trading of Tokenized NMS Stock (SEC)

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granted temporary exemptive relief to tokenized securities venues (TSVs) from the definition of “exchange” in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to trade tokenized National Market System (NMS) stock using innovative permissioned automated market makers and liquidity pools. The relief creates a five-year, bounded pathway for on-chain secondary trading and proprietary-capital liquidity provision without immediate exchange or dealer registration. It is conditioned on limits on symbols and volume, equivalent shareholder rights, issuer notice for third-party tokenization, auditable public smart contracts, synchronized trading halts, and transparency. The SEC will solicit comment before deciding whether durable rulemaking is warranted. Unresolved issues include appropriate scale, market-structure safeguards, issuer control, and the regulatory treatment of liquidity providers. [SEC]

Money and Power: Lessons from History for Stablecoins and US Dollar Dominance (BOE)

External member of the Bank of England (BOE) Financial Policy Committee Carolyn Wilkins concludes that while private digital currencies could theoretically scale, their stability remains highly conditional on credible convertibility, uniform regulation, and robust crisis-management frameworks. Probing the implications of expanding U.S. dollar stablecoins, she notes potential benefits for dollar settlement but questions their resilience during panics, warning that ostensibly liquid reserve assets may suffer severe liquidity deficits under systemic stress. Furthermore, Wilkins identifies regulatory heterogeneity across jurisdictions as a critical vulnerability complicating cross-border enforcement. She ultimately cautions against assuming technology guarantees dominance, asserting that enduring international monetary power depends strictly on fundamental fiscal capacity, institutional credibility, and the rule of law rather than mere network effects. [BOE]

And some catching up to something I missed in 2025:

NBKR Sets Out Digital Som Project Sequencing (NBKR)

[March 10, 2025] The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic (NBKR) laid out its plans to issue a blockchain-based Digital Som central bank digital currency (CBDC) to enhance financial inclusion, payment security, and digital economy infrastructure. Following the the IMF’s “5P” methodology, the project will progress sequentially from initial proof-of-concept functional testing to limited-user prototyping, followed by a live pilot before fully launch (“production”). Over the 2027–2030 horizon, the central bank aims to incorporate smart contracts for programmable payments, establish cross-border interoperability with foreign platforms, and optimize throughput and cyber resilience, supported in parallel by a dedicated regulatory framework governing platform operators and participant connectivity. [NBKR]

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260916)

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Measuring Stablecoin, Crypto and Decentralised Finance Ecosystems (BIS)

A BIS paper by Aerts, Heijmans, Paulick, and Vuletic concludes that widely used indicators of crypto-asset and decentralized finance (DeFi) activity are highly dependent on methodological choices, rendering them noisy approximations rather than direct economic measures. Although blockchain data is transparent, underlying protocol complexities obscure true economic signals. Bitcoin’s transaction model conflates actual transfers with technical change outputs, drastically altering volume estimates based on applied heuristics. Similarly, programmable smart contracts on Ethereum generate spurious activity that complicates reliable classification. The text highlights severe data heterogeneity across blockchains, demonstrating that identical stablecoins fulfill distinct economic functions on different infrastructures. Consequently, accurately assessing DeFi dynamics demands bounded estimates and rigorous technical disaggregation rather than naive data aggregation. [BIS]

CertiK and the NBKR Partner in Digital Som Security (CertiK)

CertiK, a US-based firm specializing in blockchain security and smart contract auditing, announced that it had entered into a memorandum of understanding with the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic (NBKR) focused on technical security assessments, continuous monitoring, and financial integrity regulatory advisory for the Digital Som central bank digital currency (CBDC) project and broader virtual-asset oversight. However, the arrangement is purely an exploratory framework for dialogue, and it commits to no software deployment or procurement award. [CertiK]

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260913)

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Safe Settlement Assets for Wholesale Tokenized Financial Markets (LinkedIn)

Drawing on remarks delivered at the recent Currency Research Central Bank Payments Conference, Ashley Lannquist (Glenbrook Partners) set out a decision framework for policymakers weighing which form of settlement asset should support safe large-scale tokenized financial markets — settled on distributed ledger technology (DLT). (“Large-scale” denotes markets that would ordinarily settle on a systemically important financial market infrastructure such as a central securities depository or securities settlement system.) Once such activity migrates onto DLT, safety concerns compel a choice governed by whether the asset (1) should be central bank money and (2) should be “on-chain.” The resulting matrix maps to wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) (yes/yes), real-time gross settlement (RTGS) synchronization (yes/no), regulated asset-backed stablecoins, tokenized e-money, or tokenized bank deposits (no/yes), and bank deposits (no/no). The framework is not prescriptive, being conditional on country context and acknowledging unresolved empirical questions about benefits and risks. [LinkedIn]

Fast Payment Systems and the Cost of Remittances (Banca d’Italia)

A Banca d’Italia paper by Brandi, Di Iorio, and Nobili concludes that adopting domestic fast payment systems (FPS) reduces inbound remittance costs by roughly 0.25 percentage points. It finds this is primarily achieved by compressing foreign exchange margins via increased non-bank competition. However, the authors temper these findings by highlighting significant regional heterogeneity, noting zero statistically significant cost reductions in Latin America and Europe. Furthermore, they question causality, acknowledging that FPS adoption often coincides with broader regulatory modernization. To defend their thesis, the authors employ an instrumental variable approach using market provider density to isolate whether the FPS itself is the true catalyst for the observed competition and subsequent cost compression. [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.

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260910)

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The Stablecoin Transfer Volume Number in Most Board Packs is Misleading (AI-Mabrook)

In its third quarter 2026 Digital Assets Executive Industry Update Al-Mabrook Financial questions the reliability of headline stablecoin transfer volume metrics, challenging the oft-cited $62 trillion transfer volume for 2025 as a true measure of adoption. The data suggests it is not, filtering gross volume down to just $350–$550 billion in genuine real-economy payments. Business-to-business transactions ($150 to $230 billion) dominate this legitimate flow because traditional rails remain inefficient, followed by consumer-to-consumer remittances and consumer-to-business payments ($90 to $130 billion each). Business-to-consumer flow, largely payroll and marketplace payouts, accounts for the remainder. [AI-Mabrook]

Stablecoin Multi-Country Issuance and Dollar-Run Risks in Europe (CEPR)

A Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) paper by Martino, Monnet, and Perotti critically examines the systemic risks posed by multi-country issuance of USD-denominated stablecoins. The authors argue that because the European Union (EU) Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations guarantees unconditional, par-value redemptions—unlike proposed U.S. regulations that permit fees and gates—technologically fungible tokens create dangerous avenues for cross-border redemption arbitrage. In times of stress, this regulatory asymmetry incentivizes rational holders to offload dollar-run risks entirely onto EU-based issuers. Conceding that structural bans on multi-country issuance are politically unlikely, the authors propose a pragmatic mitigation strategy to achieve “functional redemption equivalence.” They advocate mandating automatic, smart-contract-embedded contingent measures, specifically sequencing redemption fees ahead of hard gates, to deter self-fulfilling runs. Furthermore, the paper recommends granting the European Central Bank powers to suspend non-euro stablecoin redemptions during severe crises, aiming to safeguard EU monetary sovereignty against unhedgeable USD stablecoin market contagion. [CEPR]

Privacy in Wholesale Cross-Border Payments: Assessing Project Agorá (SUERF)

A Société Universitaire Européenne de Recherches Financières (SUERF) paper by Jan Camenisch and the Swiss National Bank’s Thomas Moser evaluates the privacy architecture of the Bank for International Settlements Project Agorá, a distributed ledger initiative for wholesale cross-border payments, against five design objectives. The authors note that Agorá utilizes the Paladin framework to achieve selective disclosure, regulatory access, and multijurisdictional configurability with low computational overhead. However, the assessment highlights significant architectural trade-offs. By relying on issuer-delegated verification rather than trustless systems, the design concentrates information and trust within issuing entities. Additionally, keeping private state off-ledger introduces resilience challenges, and the network remains vulnerable to metadata leakage. Ultimately, the paper concludes that while Agorá is operationally pragmatic, future phases must address off-chain state management and metadata vulnerabilities. [SUERF]

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260909)

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The Multi-Issuance Issue (SSRN)

A paper posted by Ulrich Bindseil and others critically examines the viability under European Union (EU) Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations, of stablecoin arrangements in which entities inside and outside the EU issue and redeem a single fungible stablecoin, each backing only the tokens it has itself issued. The authors use a financial accounts framework covering the two issuing entities, their custodian banks, holders, and an arbitrageur, to argue that token fungibility could inadvertently concentrate redemption pressure on EU-based issuers during stress events, potentially depleting local reserves. Furthermore, they question the efficacy of localized reserve mandates, positing that such requirements are either redundant if foreign frameworks are robust, or structurally flawed if they force dollar-denominated tokens into inferior offshore accounts. Ultimately, the paper advocates for an equivalence regime that allows direct EU distribution of foreign-issued stablecoins, despite reliance on foreign regulatory parity not completely safeguarding the EU against cross-border contagion. [SSRN]

eCurrency Unveils Secure eOffline CBDC (PR Newswire)

eCurrency Mint announced its Secure eOffline central bank digital currency (CBDC) solution, demonstrated in Africa, enabling consumers, merchants, and government agencies to transact CBDC without internet or mobile connectivity via partner-supplied phones, smart cards, or dedicated hardware. It positions offline capability as parity with cash and a lever for financial inclusion within eCurrency’s existing Digital Symmetric Core Currency Cryptography (DSC3) infrastructure. However, the release provides no technical detail on offline settlement finality, double-spend prevention, or reconciliation upon reconnection. [PR Newswire]

Central Banks On-Chain (ECB)

Discussing Darrell Duffie’s “Tokenized Finance and the Perimeter of Central Banking” paper at the 2026 Jackson Hole Conference, European Central Bank (ECB) Executive Board Member Isabel Schnabel argued that wholesale tokenization requires an ultimate settlement asset that is both risk-free and elastically supplied. Challenging Duffie’s perimeter conservatism, she maintained that stablecoins cannot replicate central bank liquidity provision under systemic stress, and that proxy or bridge models preserve fragmentation while leaving policy operations off-chain. Citing the need to defend European monetary sovereignty against the rise of foreign-currency stablecoins, she advocated for native tokenized central bank reserves to enable atomic repo, automated collateral management, and 24/7 liquidity facilities. Schnabel framed the central design choice as a trade-off between common ledgers—which maximize atomicity and integration—and interoperable networks, which better mitigate concentration, governance, operational resilience, and technology lock-in risks. [ECB]

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260907)

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Group of Leading Banks to Establish Stablecoin Enterprise (PR Newswire)

Twenty-one global financial institutions intend to establish a new entity in H2 2026 to issue 1:1 reserve-backed stablecoins, initially USD-denominated with planned G7 currency expansion. Targeting an H1 2027 launch, the consortium aims for GENIUS Act and MiCA compliance. This initiative matters because it represents a highly coordinated, systemic effort by traditional finance to co-opt public blockchain infrastructure and challenge crypto-native issuers. The group comprises Bank of America, Capital One, Citi, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, PNC, Scotiabank, TD, Wells Fargo, WisdomTree, Santander, BBVA, Commerzbank, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds, Rabobank, UBS, MUFG, Sirius International, and Standard Bank. Notably absent are Barclays and BNP Paribas—participants in an initial exploratory phase announced in October 2025—alongside JPMorgan, which continues advancing its proprietary tokenized deposit network. [PR Newswire]

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260901)

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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.