ECB president calls to address risks from non-EU stablecoins
Amid the US set to implement a stablecoin framework after passage of the GENIUS Act, EU officials are looking at the implications of foreign-issued stablecoins.
Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), is calling for policymakers to address gaps in stablecoin regulation, particularly for those issued beyond the “robust” Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework in the European Union.
In prepared remarks for the ninth annual conference of the European Systemic Risk Board on Wednesday, Lagarde said EU lawmakers should take steps in situations where an entity covered under MiCA and a non-EU entity jointly issue stablecoins.
She added that such stablecoin issuers should not be allowed to operate in the EU unless there were “robust equivalence regimes” at the source, which included allowing EU investors “to always redeem their holdings at par value” and requiring issuers to fully back their coins.