The Bank of Italy has published a speech by Deputy Governor Chiara Scotti prepared for the Annual Meeting of the International Institute of Banking Studies in Milan, arguing that banks should pursue experimentation and staged investment in tokenized finance rather than wait for the market architecture to settle. The speech reiterates the case for preserving access to public money as payments become digital and extends that discussion to wholesale settlement. A digital euro would provide a public payment option distributed through supervised intermediaries. In wholesale markets, access to central bank money and interoperability across platforms would help avoid introducing private issuers’ credit and liquidity risks into settlement and fragmenting liquidity across closed networks. Pontes, launched in September, connects market distributed ledger technology platforms to TARGET Services for settlement in central bank money, while Appia explores the longer-term architecture for interoperable tokenized finance. For banks, the strategic questions concern control of customer relationships, the provision of money and liquidity on new platforms, and participation in setting standards. Banks could retain their credit and liquidity functions while losing influence over services if other operators control the customer interface. Atomic settlement can reduce principal risk without reducing liquidity needs, and fragmented funding or inefficient collateral movement can make otherwise attractive applications uneconomic. Although tokenized assets and tokenized deposits remain limited, delaying investment can also delay learning and leave institutions adapting to standards established by others. Scotti advocates investments that remain useful across different market outcomes, including modular systems, common data standards and digital asset expertise, with commitments scaled up or abandoned as evidence develops. Governance should bring together lessons from separate pilots across business lines and assess them against security, regulatory obligations and customer interests.
Bank of Italy Deputy Governor Chiara Scotti urges staged investment in tokenized finance while preserving a common monetary anchor
In a speech prepared for a banking industry meeting in Milan, Bank of Italy Deputy Governor Chiara Scotti advocates staged investment in tokenized finance while maintaining central bank money as a common monetary anchor. Interoperability and efficient movement of liquidity and collateral are needed to prevent fragmentation across platforms. Banks should build capabilities and help shape standards before market structures consolidate, without committing prematurely to a single technology.