Today stablecoin issuer Paxos said it acquired Finnish e-money institution Membrane Finance, the issuer of EURe. The deal gives Paxos a licensed e-money institution (EMI) enabling access to all EU states, subject to regulatory approval.
Paxos and its affiliates are already regulated in New York, Abu Dhabi and Singapore. Under Europe’s MiCA regulations crypto legislation, registration in one state is passported to all other member states.
Paxos is the issuer of the PayPal stablecoin (PYUSD) and its own Paxos dollar (USDP). Its UAE affiliate has issued a yield bearing stablecoin. And in Singapore it recently launched the Global Dollar Network, which will share interest revenues on the USDG stablecoin with distribution partners.
“Stablecoins offer a global solution to challenges that countless people and companies feel when it comes to money movement and payments. Stablecoins are becoming increasingly more prevalent throughout the market as more use cases emerge for everyday users, “ said Walter Hessert, Head of Strategy at Paxos. “With Membrane, we expect to extend our reach to EU customers looking to benefit from stablecoins.”
Stablecoins in the EU
In terms of other stablecoin players, Circle historically had a strong presence in Europe (Ireland). It chose France as its base for MiCAR, directly registering as an EMI.
MiCA regulations require a high proportion of reserves to be held at banks – 30% for smaller stablecoins and 60% for significant ones. Tether claims this is the reason it has not registered in the EU. However, so far it has chosen to remain offshore, avoiding jurisdictions that require it to be regulated. A large part of Tether’s stablecoin balance is on TRON, a blockchain that’s popular in Africa.
Meanwhile, MiCAR also has some quite complicated rules limiting the scale of foreign currency stablecoins in the EU. However, this is widely misunderstood, so we previously provided a deep dive on the topic.
Bank issued stablecoins are also explored as part of our Research report on tokenized deposits and DLT payments.
