Digital Money

The euro is the second most important central bank reserve currency behind the US dollar. Yet it has lacked a Stablecoin presence commensurate with its international status: 99 per cent of Stablecoins are issued in US dollars and euros account for just 0.2 per cent of Stablecoins in circulation worldwide. 37 European banks from 15 countries have now joined forces to address that gap, supplying both the funding and the power to distribute a euro Stablecoin for use as an atomic

Stablecoins are not booming and CBDCs are not dead, especially in Europe where the ECB is pressing ahead with plans for a digital euro in 2028. Different uses-cases will rely on different forms of tokenised money and the private sector is building the necessary infrastructure. Corporates are drivers of change in payments and cash management and may be pioneering the disintermediation of the banks.

Asset manager Fidelity has issued a US dollar-denominated Stablecoin called Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD) onto the Ethereum blockchain The issuance follows the granting to Fidelity of a conditional trust bank licence by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) FIDD circumvents GENIUS Act restrictions on paying interest to Stablecoin holders by integrating FIDD with a tokenised money market fund Fidelity Investments has launched a US dollar-denominated Stablecoin,

Cross-border payments platform Payoneer has applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter A federal banking licence will enable Payoneer customers to pay and get paid in Stablecoins and hold Stablecoin balances in digital wallets Payoneer plans to issue its own US dollar-denominated Stablecoin that its clients can use to settle cross-border payments and hold in digital wallets Payoneer , the cross-border payments technology p

Anchorage Digital has launched a US dollar Stablecoin payments service aimed at foreign banks currently using correspondent banks The new service enables banks to buy and sell and hold in custody a variety of US dollar-denominated Stablecoins authorised under the GENIUS Act The regulated status of Anchorage Digital Bank is expected to appeal to foreign banks willing to use blockchain infrastructure that eliminates regulatory risk Anchorage Digital , the regulated provider of

Société Générale subsidiary SG-FORGE is making its EUR CoinVertible euro-denominated Stablecoin available on the Ripe-owned blockchain XPRL Société Générale hopes XPRL will increase use of the EUR CoinVertible, already available on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, in trading activity Euro Stablecoins remain modest by comparison with US dollar equivalents but S&P predicts a €1.1 trillion markets by 2030 as Stablecoins are used in payments French universal bank Société Géné

Stablecoin infrastructure provider Bridge has secured a conditional federal banking licence from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) The licence, once fully approved, will enable Bridge to custody digital assets, issue Stablecoins and hold Stablecoin reserves Bridge is the sixth Stablecoin or digital assets company to secure an OCC banking licence in the last five months Bridge , the Stablecoin infrastructure provider owned by Stripe since February last year,

Cross-border payments company Payoneer is adding Stablecoins to the payment options it offers customers The Stablecoin capabilities will be deliver via technology supplied by Bridge, the Stablecoin infrastructure provider owned by Stripe Users of the Payoneer service will be able to hold Stablecoins, pay and get paid in Stablecoins, and transfer the value of Stablecoins to bank accounts Payoneer , the Israeli cross-border payments company that listed on NASDAQ in 2021 via a S

Emmanuel Daniel, founder of the TAB Global research house, thinks about the effects of digital technology on finance and how the changes it makes possible will impact business and society. In The Great Transition – the personalisation of finance is here, published in September 2022, he predicted that blockchain technology would shift Internet finance from centralised, market-based platforms to a distributed, networked, personalised and democratised model. Today, he is concern

The government of Bermuda is working with Circle and Coinbase to put the island economy on blockchain Circle will provide the USDC Stablecoin and Coinbase the blockchain infrastructure Payments by USDC are merely the starting point for tokenisation of all financial transactions and assets in Bermuda The Government of Bermuda has announced it plans to move the island’s economy on to the blockchain, initially by embracing the USDC Stablecoin issued by Circle as the principal

The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has built an infrastructure with Canton Network called DisH to put commercial bank money on-chain The DiSH infrastructure, unlike the tokenised deposit platforms developed by banks, is an open network not a closed universe DisH aims to facilitate settlement of traditional financial market transactions as well as digital asset transactions on blockchains On 15 January 2026 the London Stock Exchange Group ( LSEG ) announced it had launched

Lloyds Bank issued tokenised sterling deposits onto the Canton Network public blockchain and used them to buy a gilt-edged security from Archax Lloyds ran its own node on the Canton Network rather than rely on the network provider, so retained control of customer service standards Tokenised deposits, unlike Stablecoins, enable users to stay within regulatory perimeters and deposit insurance schemes Lloyds Banking Group , Archax and Canton Network say they have proved that a

J.P. Morgan is pioneering the use of tokenised deposits to make payments between banks J.P. Morgan blockchain unit is issuing its tokenised deposit on Canton Network, the second public blockchain it is using after Base The native issue of the JPMD tokenised deposit on to Canton Network will take place in phases through 2026 Tokenised deposits, hitherto trapped within banks, are starting to become available for inter-bank payments through native issuance on public networks. Ki

Sony Bank, the online banking arm of Sony Corporation, is considering the issuance of a Sony-branded US dollar Stablecoin Sony Bank is working with Bastion, an NYDFS-licensed blockchain infrastructure provider, in the United States Stablecoins enable corporates to capture customer spending, offer micro-rewards, cut payment transaction costs and earn net interest margin Sony Bank Inc. , the online banking arm of the Sony Group Corporation, the Japanese electronics, video games

The pivot by R3 from private to public blockchains through its partnership with Solana might be one of those apparently arcane technical deals - like IBM and Microsoft or Apple and ARM - that changes everything. It allies regulated, institutional money with an open blockchain protocol that can compete with existing equity and debt marketplaces on volume, speed and price, while still delivering on the central promise of blockchain: elimination of high levels of financial inter

The digital payments arm of Ant Group, operator of the Alipay mobile payments platform, has integrated Kinexys Digital Payments into its treasury platform Ant Financial and Kinexys parent J.P. Morgan say the integration offers Ant Financial the ability to make payments in three major currencies 24/7 The cross-currency payment capability operates outside normal banking hours but remains within the J.P. Morgan private permissioned blockchain network Ant International, the Sing

Circle has agreed to link its payments infrastructure with the cross-border payments platform provided to banks by technology vendor Finastra The link will enable banks to settle payments in the USDC Stablecoin without requiring customers to instruct in USDC The arrangement gives banks the option to settle payments without going via their traditional correspondent banks Payments technology vendor Finastra and Circle , issuer of the USDC Stablecoin, say they are working toget

Quant is applying programmable payments to modernise payments processes and workflows, embedding programmability at customer account level rather than into the payments infrastructure. Speaking to Bob Currie, Contributing Editor at Future of Finance, Hargreaves describes how this model can improve automation, security and flexibility for users, while reducing fragmentation in the payments ecosystem.

A Future of Finance interview with Richard Brown, Chief Technology and Product Officer at R3. R3 celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. Richard G. Brown, R3’s Chief Technology and Product Officer, speaks to Bob Currie about the drivers for Corda’s design, how these are changing, and how far the company has fulfilled the targets that it envisaged at formation. The discussion explores the potential for convergence of private and public blockchain ecosystems, thereby pot

Blockchain-based cross-border payments technology company Ripple has bought prime broker Hidden Road for US$1.25 billion The Ripple Stablecoin RLUSD will facilitate cross-margining between digital assets and traditional markets for Hidden Road customers Hidden Road will migrate its post-trade activity to the XRP Ledger (XRPL), the Ripple blockchain Ripple, the technology company that uses blockchain to speed up and lower the cost of cross-border payments, has acquired non-ban