WASHINGTON, April 15 (Reuters) – Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Wednesday that progress on establishing international standards for so-called stablecoins, cryptoassets which are pegged to a fiat currency such as the dollar, had slowed over the last year.
Bailey, who also chairs the Financial Stability Board, commented on the timing of global standards in the context of his concerns about “assured value”, the confidence that a stablecoin can always be redeemed at face value, on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings.
“We do have to have international standards to it to underpin assured value. I don’t think we can have a situation where we’ve got different rules of engagement in different countries for that,” Bailey said at an event hosted by the Institute of International Finance.
Britain and the United States are among major economies pressing ahead with domestic rules for stablecoins as policymakers seek to capitalise on the technology, while guarding against financial stability risks.
International standards are seen as critical to preventing so-called regulatory arbitrage, where financial firms seek out the jurisdiction with the least onerous rules.
(Reporting by William Schomberg in Washington and Phoebe Seers in London; Editing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Alexander Smith)
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