EU central banks call for a wider stablecoin interest ban in the MiCA review
The ECB and national central banks want the ban on stablecoin remuneration extended to lending, borrowing and staking, and reserve rules based on liquidity rather than fixed bank-deposit quotas.
The European System of Central Banks filed its response to the Commission's targeted MiCA review consultation on 22 September, ahead of the 30 September close.
It supports keeping the ban on CASPs paying remuneration on stablecoins and extending it to crypto lending, borrowing and staking. It also proposes replacing MiCA's bank-deposit thresholds for reserve assets (30% for e-money tokens, 60% for significant tokens) with liquidity-based requirements.
Separately, the ECB described custodial staking arrangements that promise a return as comparable to taking repayable funds — a banking activity.
If adopted, yield and staking products offered to EU clients would face tighter rules, and EU banks holding stablecoin reserves could see different deposit behaviour — both relevant to how banks assess crypto clients.