In a speech at the Federación Iberoamericana de Bolsas annual meeting in Madrid, Bank of Spain Governor José Luis Escrivá set out how technological change in payments could affect competitiveness, stability and monetary autonomy, and argued that it also creates an opening for the euro to play a larger international role. He warned that while distributed ledger technology (DLT) can improve efficiency, widespread use of privately issued stablecoins as payment and settlement assets could undermine the role of public money and, given their currency composition, reinforce global reliance on the US dollar. Escrivá cited data showing around 45% of world exports are invoiced in US dollars versus about 35% in euro, while roughly half of cross-border market payments are in dollars compared with less than 25% in euro. He noted that 99.8% of stablecoin market capitalisation is dollar denominated, meaning broad adoption in commercial payments, remittances or cross-border settlement could further channel global transactions through the dollar and create fragmentation risks because stablecoins are issued by private agents and are not backed by central banks. While pointing to the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Regulation as a rigorous framework, he flagged the risk of regulatory arbitrage if other jurisdictions apply looser rules, and positioned central bank innovation as the complement to regulation: the Eurosystem is working on a digital euro and on wholesale initiatives including Pontes, aimed at interoperability between DLT platforms and settlement in central bank money, and Appia, which explores a platform where tokenised central bank money can coexist with other financial assets. He also framed Latin America’s exposure to dollar dependence as financial, trade and jurisdictional, highlighting that in 2025 to date more than 90% of the region’s international debt issuance has been dollar denominated versus around 7% in euro, and that about 95% of exports are invoiced in dollars versus roughly 3% in euro, alongside rising US tariffs for Latin America and lower tariffs between Europe and Latin America, and called for diversification across currencies, jurisdictions and settlement channels including greater use of euro issuance, euro invoicing and European market infrastructure.
Bank of Spain 2025-09-18
Bank of Spain Governor Escrivá backs the digital euro and DLT settlement projects while warning stablecoins could deepen dollar dependence
Bank of Spain Governor José Luis Escrivá, at the Federación Iberoamericana de Bolsas meeting, highlighted technological changes in payments affecting competitiveness, stability, and monetary autonomy. He warned that widespread use of privately issued stablecoins could undermine public money and increase reliance on the US dollar. Escrivá emphasized the need for regulatory frameworks like the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation and central bank innovations, such as the digital euro, to address these challenges.