stable coins
By James Thorp
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What Hernández de Cos Actually Fears. He did acknowledge one point that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also raised —…
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Five Markets, Five Different Rulebooks. The FSI study, released Thursday, compared how five major jurisdictions handle stablecoin issuers:…
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Pablo Hernández de Cos didn't mince words. The head of the Bank for International Settlements came out swinging against stablecoins, saying they lack the credibility needed for…
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Hernández de Cos, who also happens to be in the running for European Central Bank President, made clear that stablecoins fall short as a scalable payment solution.
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He did acknowledge one point that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also raised — stablecoins could cut government borrowing costs. Fine.
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There's also the interoperability problem. Different stablecoin platforms don't talk to each other cleanly, and enforcing anti-money laundering controls consistently across all…
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The FSI study, released Thursday, compared how five major jurisdictions handle stablecoin issuers: the US, European Union, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
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Related: Jackson Hole Symposium Marks Historic First for Stablecoins on Feds Agenda
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The US and Singapore sit on the stricter end. The US GENIUS Act, for instance, bars payment stablecoin issuers from lending, staking, proprietary trading, and holding third-party…
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Hong Kong, the UK, and the EU are more flexible. Those markets let stablecoin issuers take on additional business activities — but only with specific regulatory authorizations or…
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One structural quirk the study flagged: the restrictions in most of these frameworks target the issuing entity specifically, not the entire corporate group.
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No unified global framework exists right now. Unclear whether one is actually coming anytime soon.
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Read also: Federal Reserve Makes Historic Move: Crypto and Stablecoins Featured at Jackson Hole
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The anti-money laundering angle keeps coming back too. Hernández de Cos said applying consistent AML controls across different stablecoin platforms is one of the harder problems…
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The FSI study didn't offer a single recommended model. It mapped the terrain. And the terrain is messy, with the US and Singapore pulling toward restriction while Europe and…
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