Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260921)(Second Revision)

September 24, 2026September 24, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

On further consideration, I am fully walking back my contention that the European Central Bank (ECB) Pontes pilot “cash tokens” are not tokenized central bank money (CeBM) or wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC). Based on the standard Bank for International Settlements (BIS) definition of a CBDC (a digital liability of the central bank denominated in the national unit of account), the cash tokens unambiguously qualify. In my first revision of the September post, I had appended an additional condition that the transfer of the digital instrument must constitute instantaneous, unconditional, and legal settlement finality natively on the primary ledger. Because the current Pontes architecture relies on a subsequent defunding event in T2 to achieve ultimate legal finality, I argued they functioned as transitional settlement proxies (effectively TARGET-linked depository receipts) rather than true wholesale CBDCs. I now recognize that appending this strict settlement-timing condition to the base definition was a mistake. While the distinction between technical and legal finality remains a critical architectural discussion regarding systemic risk, it should not disqualify an instrument from being classified as a CBDC. Moving forward, I am sticking strictly to the BIS definition. Sorry for all the whipsawing!

Eurosystem Brings Central Bank Money to Tokenized Finance (ECB)

The European Central Bank (ECB) launched Pontes to enable wholesale transactions in tokenized assets to be settled in central bank money via Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer (TARGET) Services. Operating as a consolidated interoperability solution, Pontes integrates the strengths of the Eurosystem’s 2024 exploratory trials. It features a dual settlement model that allows participants to settle the cash leg of transactions either directly in T2 (the Eurosystem’s real-time gross settlement system) via application programming interface (API) based triggers, or on the Eurosystem distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform utilizing cash tokens (a claim on the ECB to transfer the equivalent CeBM in T2) and dedicated DLT wallets. In both cases, legal settlement finality in CeBM occurs in T2 — for cash tokens, upon defunding or the mandatory end-of-day sweep back into T2 accounts. The hash-link protocol is specifically utilized to ensure secure, synchronized delivery versus payment (DvP) across platforms. Pontes will initially offer a core set of services, with enhanced features and extended operating hours introduced gradually toward full implementation by 2028. [ECB]

ECB to Invest Part of Own Funds in Tokenized Securities, with Settlement via Pontes (ECB)

The European Central Bank (ECB) is initiating investments of its own funds in tokenized, euro-denominated public sector securities to build institutional expertise in distributed ledger technology (DLT). Transactions will settle in central bank money via the Eurosystem’s newly launched Pontes solution, supporting the broader Appia initiative for a European tokenized financial ecosystem. [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 (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 (20260913)

September 13, 2026September 13, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

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.

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 (20260906)

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

Navigating the Purpose and Provision of CBDC (IJPE)

In the International Journal of Political Economy (IJPE), George Pantelopoulos argues that one purpose of central bank digital currency (CBDC) is to preserve the fungibility of privately issued means of payment. Through the retail anchor function of central bank money, convertibility into banknotes bridges heterogeneities among forms of private money and forges a symbiosis between them, preventing commercial bank money from de-anchoring and thereby averting adverse selection and fractured monetary sovereignty. With banknotes declining as a means of payment, however, this convertibility risks becoming a merely theoretical rather than real-world construct — a gap that could justify introducing CBDC. Separately, the paper contends that genuine CBDC must be booked as a direct central bank liability; “synthetic CBDC” schemes, being central-bank-backed e-money issued by intermediaries, do not qualify. A two-tier architecture is presented as the most likely means of preserving this liability structure without requiring the central bank to hold retail accounts. [IJPE]

The Alchemy of Fungible Money: A Trilateral Approach to Bridging Heterogeneities (SSRN)

George Pantelopoulos and Paul Wessels posted a paper on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) that challenges the prevailing “moneyness” policy focus on “singleness” – the property that payments denominated in the sovereign unit of account will be settled at par, even if they use different forms of privately and publicly issued monies. The authors argue that settlement at par is merely one component of true interchangeability. Even when instruments like commercial bank deposits, e-money, and stablecoins exchange at par, unmitigated heterogeneities in credit risk and accessibility can still trigger adverse selection and systemic instability during market stress. To achieve practical fungibility, they propose a trilateral framework of foundational (unit of account), enabling (convertibility, deterministic settlement finality, interoperability), and supportive (regulation, deposit insurance) elements. As physical cash usage declines, the analysis questions whether decentralized innovations like stablecoins and tokenized deposits can sufficiently replicate these complex institutional support mechanisms to achieve practical fungibility. [SSRN]

Tokenized Finance and The Perimeter of Central Banking (KC Fed)

Darrell Duffie presented a paper at the Kansas City Fed (KC Fed) Jackson Hole Conference that evaluates how central banks can support safe settlement for large-scale tokenized finance without expanding their operational perimeter. He analyzes infrastructure models based on financial stability, central-bank balance sheet size, and fragmentation costs, warning that poor interoperability will severely delay tokenization’s growth. Duffie assesses four approaches: (1) providing tokenized central-bank reserves, (2) synchronizing extended-hour conventional payment systems with programmable ledgers, (3) authorizing private-sector narrow banks to offer tokenized deposits via central-bank omnibus accounts, and (4) utilizing wholesale stablecoins. He predicts central banks will likely delegate tokenization to private-sector narrow banks (approach 3) to avoid building 24×7 programmable ledgers themselves. He dismisses stablecoins as inferior for financial stability; as claims on private issuers, they carry vulnerabilities like liquidity transformation and contagion, lacking the safety of central bank money. [KC 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 (20260903)

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

Digital Currency in the Australian Context: An Update (RBA)

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Australian Government Treasury published reports that concluded that Australia’s retail payment system is serving households and businesses well, and that there is no clear public interest case for a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). This is consistent with the conclusions of the 2024 “Central Bank Digital Currency and the Future of Digital Money in Australia” RBA and Treasury joint paper. The new assessment drew on a public consultation conducted by Verian Group, which asked Australians about their payment needs and views on a potential retail CBDC. Going forward, the RBA will continue monitoring developments in retail payments, cash accessibility, tokenized money, consumer payment preferences and digital finance domestically and internationally, to ensure it remains well placed to reassess the case for a retail CBDC should circumstances (and the policy case) change in the future. In the meantime, the RBA remains committed to progressing an ambitious range of initiatives in wholesale markets and money, including a coordinated work program on wholesale tokenized finance. [RBA]

The Role of RITS in Supporting Settlement in a Tokenized Ecosystem (RBA)

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) launched a consultation on the roles of the Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System (RITS) (the RBA’s real-time gross settlement (RTGS) platform) and Fast Settlement System (FSS) (the RBA’s fast payment platform) in supporting settlement in a tokenized ecosystem. As highlighted in the May 2026 Project Acacia final report, tokenization has the potential to enhance the efficiency, functionality and resilience of Australia’s wholesale financial markets. The consultation seeks views on how the RBA’s settlement services could support the development and growth of tokenized asset markets and tokenized private money in Australia, while continuing to promote safety, efficiency and financial stability. The consultation is one of several initiatives identified in Project Acacia as forming the basis of a future program of work aimed at ensuring Australia’s money, payments and settlement arrangements remain fit for the future. The RBA is also seeking views on key design considerations for tokenized central bank reserves. [RBA]

Harneys and droppRWA Plan First Blockchain-Recorded Catastrophe Bond Issue (Coindesk)

Harneys, a global offshore law firm originally established in the British Virgin Islands, and droppRWA, a Bermuda-based tokenization platform, reportedly plan to issue tokenized catastrophe (CAT) bonds by 2027, transitioning legal ownership directly onto a blockchain. This could compress reconciliation from days to seconds and reduce minimum investments from $250,000 to $5,000 via beneficial interest vehicles. The project is still pending applicable regulatory requirements and approvals. Any platform administrator role would be subject to licensing under Bermuda’s Digital Asset Business Act 2018. [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 (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 (20260826)

August 26, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

India Plans First Tokenized Corporate Bond Issue in September (Reuters)

India will reportedly pilot its first tokenized corporate bond issuance in September, with state-owned power financier Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) Limited issuing under 5 billion rupees in blockchain-recorded notes settled via the central bank digital currency (CBDC). The Reserve Bank of India and the markets regulator are jointly developing the framework, requiring investors to hold both a wholesale CBDC wallet and a new distributed-ledger securities wallet (“DEMAT 2.0”) built by depositories, rather than trading on conventional electronic book platforms. Access is restricted to a select investor group at the pilot stage, bonds carry a three-month lock-in, and a secondary market is only expected by December, leaving interoperability and scaling questions unresolved. [Reuters]

Japan Eyes Blockchain for Instant Stock, Government Bond Settlement (Nikkei)

Japan’s Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) reportedly plan to develop a blockchain-based platform to support real-time 24/7 settlement of government bond and stock transactions using a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC). A study group involving the MOF, BOJ, Financial Services Agency, and financial institutions will soon be established, with a development plan expected to be finalized by early 2027, with a view to launching in the early 2030s. [Nikkei]

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 (20260615)

June 15, 2026June 16, 2026 ~ kiffmeister

Report on the National Payment System in Peru (BCRP)

[March 2026] The Banco Central de Reserva del Perú (BCRP) published its March 2026 national payments report, detailing progress on its “Dinero Digital” retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot launched in October 2024 with telecom partner Bitel (via the BiPay wallet). Designed to test digital payments in unbanked rural sectors, the pilot reached 67,000 active users, an average of 91,000 daily transactions, and S/ 4.2 million in circulation by late February 2025. By December 2025, active users expanded to 172,000, averaging 47,600 daily transactions, with S/ 10.0 million circulating directly among end users. The notable drop in transaction velocity likely stems from the cooling of early adoption biases and introductory marketing incentives as the pilot transitioned from tech-centric early adopters into deeper, lower-velocity rural segments. [BCRP]

ASX Admits Misleading Conduct Relating to CHESS Replacement Project (ASIC)

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) agreed to pay a A$20.5 million civil penalty and A$3 million in legal costs to settle proceedings brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) over its failed blockchain-based replacement for the Chess post-trade system. The regulator alleged ASX misled the market in February 2022 by stating the project was “progressing well” despite internally classifying it as “red,” indicating significant unresolved issues, before subsequently delaying and then cancelling the project and writing off approximately A$245–255 million in costs. [ASIC]

Euro Area TIPS Payment Platform Volumes Grew by 82.5% in 2025 (ECB)

The European Central Bank (ECB) published its 2025 TARGET (Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross settlement Express Transfer) Services Annual Report. It reported that the TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) system experienced very strong 2025 growth: instant payments settled in TIPS rose 82.5% to 2.47 billion transactions, driven mainly by the Instant Payments Regulation, in force since April 2024, which requires Euro Area banks offering standard euro credit transfers to receive 24/7 instant euro payments from January 9, 2025 and to send them from October 9, 2025. Also, in April 2025, it became possible to settle Danish krone payments instantly in TIPS (the Swedish krone joined in 2024). Also, in June 2025, the TIPS cross-currency settlement layer, that enables linked settlement across currencies and underpins interlinking projects with other fast payment systems, was implemented and successfully tested and formally activated by the ECB, Danmarks Nationalbank, and Sveriges Riksbank. In addition, the ECB is working on supporting 24/7 instant-payment funding. [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 (20260612)

June 12, 2026June 12, 2026 ~ kiffmeister

Zelle Heads to India, Unveils ZelleUSDSM Stablecoin For Other Markets (Zelle)

Early Warning, the operator of U.S. fast payment system (FPS) Zelle, will launch Zelle in India first for U.S. consumers sending money to family and friends abroad, with initial availability expected before year-end, and it also introduced ZelleUSD (ZLUSD), a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin intended to support future international payments in other markets. The company framed the move as an expansion of its domestic payments network into cross-border remittances, saying financial institutions could offer near-instant transfers through existing banks and credit unions. [Zelle]

The Anatomy of Stablecoin Transactions (BIS)

The BIS published a paper by Schär, Kosse, Rice, Shirakami, and Siridhasanakul that analyze 593 million Ethereum event logs across 141 million transactions to argue that stablecoin transfers are routinely embedded within atomically executed bundles combining trading, lending, and settlement, distorting standard interpretations of stablecoin activity. While 31.6% of transactions involve such complexity, these generate nearly 60% of all transfer events, meaning transfer-level data misclassifies most observations as standalone payments. USDT, USDC, and PYUSD differ systematically in co-usage, computational burden, urgency, and business-hour alignment, reflecting distinct institutional designs rather than interchangeability. The action-set classification offers supervisors a basis for activity-based oversight, while divergent jurisdictional timing patterns underscore the need for cross-border data-sharing among regulators. [BIS]

Stakeholder Engagement and Roadmap for Philippines Wholesale CBDC (IMF)

The IMF published a technical assistance report on stakeholder engagement and roadmap development for Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s (BSP’s) Project Agila wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) project. As part of this work, tokenized government bond settlement and cross-border payments were identified as priority wCBDC use cases. Workshops with financial institutions, the Bureau of the Treasury, and market infrastructure providers highlighted real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system settlement-window limitations, capital market shallowness, and correspondent-banking-dependent cross-border payment inefficiencies. The roadmap calls for cost-benefit analysis of wCBDC against alternatives including trigger solutions and omnibus accounts, although the Securities Clearing Corporation (SCCP) prefers its existing fee-free settlement-bank arrangements, which also provide netting and liquidity-saving features not easily replicated on RTGS, over direct settlement access. Legal framework gaps and financial integrity regulation compliance remain key open issues. [IMF]

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.