On 10 September, Global Digital Finance (GDF) convened two roundtables with the Bank of England, with participation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), GDF members and industry experts. Both sessions were held under the Chatham House Rule.
The first roundtable focused on the Bank of England’s draft Code of Practice for systemic stablecoins and the proposed joint Bank of England-FCA regulatory approach. Moving beyond the headline policy choices, participants tested how the regime would work in practice across real business models, payment flows and market infrastructure. Key themes included how the temporary £40bn issuance guardrail would be reviewed and adjusted, what T+0 redemption means once KYC/AML checks and cross-border payment rails are factored in, the treatment of custody and omnibus structures, and the value of a phased transition into systemic supervision. A wider theme was that the UK regime must work across the full stablecoin ecosystem, not only at issuer level.
The second roundtable used GDF’s Global Stablecoin Regulatory Playbook as a framework for discussing international regulatory convergence, functional equivalence and cross-border recognition. With broad agreement across major jurisdictions on what a credible fiat-backed stablecoin regime should achieve, the discussion centred on how different national regimes can interact. Participants explored the distinction between redemption and convertibility, the Bank’s openness to deference for overseas-issued systemic stablecoins, the risks of liquidity fragmentation from multi-issuance requirements, and the role of international standard setters such as the FSB and FATF.
The central takeaway was that the next phase of stablecoin regulation is less about making rules identical and more about building the regulatory trust, evidence and supervisory mechanisms that allow well-regulated stablecoins to operate across borders without unnecessary fragmentation.
Date:
September 2026