Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260928)

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

Remunerating Means of Payment (Bruegel)

Bruegel published a paper by Ulrich Bindseil that concludes that regulatory constraints on remunerating electronic means of payments are either ineffective or undermine financial stability and efficiency. No economic theory of the interest-rate spread between money and adjacent financial assets implies that means of payment must be unremunerated. Furthermore, enforcing non-remuneration acts as a regressive tax proportional to nominal interest rates, transferring wealth from users to issuers. Such constraints are easily circumvented, generating financial flows that could threaten market stability. Although some defend these restrictions as necessary to protect bank deposit franchises and systemic stability, the paper finds such claims insufficiently founded, serving only as temporary measures when superior regulatory tools are absent. Consequently, tiered remuneration for digital currencies should be adopted. [Bruegel]

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 (20260925)

September 25, 2026September 25, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260918)

September 18, 2026September 18, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260917)

September 17, 2026September 17, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260910)

September 10, 2026September 10, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260909)

September 9, 2026September 9, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

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.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260829)

August 29, 2026August 29, 2026 ~ kiffmeister

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

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 (20260824)

August 24, 2026August 24, 2026 ~ kiffmeister

Jam-Dex Transactions Climb as BOJ Expands Reach (Jamaica Observer)

Transaction volumes of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) JAM-DEX central bank digital currency (CBDC) have reportedly accelerated this year, reaching J$51.7 million in the seven months to July 2026, exceeding the J$19.3 million recorded in all of 2025 and about J$3 million in 2024. Deputy Governor Natalie Haynes said that outstanding JAM-DEX stands at J$294.7 million and subscribers at about 320,000, but both those numbers are little changed from end-2025, and only two wallet providers currently operate. (The amount of JAM-DEX minted has remained static at J$276 million since end-2023, and J$260 million was in circulation at end-2025 and the number of wallets was 305,000.) However, the BOJ is moving to bring more financial institutions onto the platform and widen merchant acceptance, and it expects that by the first half of 2027, about 40% of points of sale (POS) across the island should be able to accept JAM-DEX. [Jamaica Observer]

The Hard Truth is that the Clarity Act is an Anti-Crypto Bill (CoinDesk)

Berkeley Law lecturer Hermine argues that the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act is not a technology-enabling crypto framework but an intermediary-centered market-structure bill, allocating far more attention to exchanges, brokers, custodians, and related entities than to decentralized protocols or peer-to-peer use. Against a backdrop of prior legislative paralysis and major platform failures, Senate consideration has slipped to mid-September; she contends that concentrated industry political financing helped produce legislation aligned with large incumbents rather than users or protocol developers. Regulating centralized firms does not establish standards for decentralized-system security, governance, disclosures, accountability, or remedies after failures. [CoinDesk]

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

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.