Overview

• At the ESRB conference, ECB President Christine Lagarde called for robust equivalence regimes and asset‑transfer safeguards before foreign stablecoin issuers can operate in the EU.
• She identified “multi-issuance” schemes—joint EU and non‑EU issuance of fungible tokens—as a gap that leaves EU reserves exposed because MiCAR does not bind the non‑EU issuer.
• Lagarde said investors would likely redeem in the EU during stress given MiCAR’s immediate, cost‑free redemption at par, unlike the United States, risking concentrated outflows that local reserves may not meet.
• Comparing the risk to cross‑border banking liquidity problems, she pointed to the need for protections analogous to the liquidity coverage ratio and net stable funding ratio.
• She pressed for international coordination to prevent regulatory arbitrage, echoing outside warnings such as Richard Portes’s view that EU supervisors could be left backstopping entire cross‑border groups.