The Riksbank publishes a report on stablecoins, exploring their benefits and risks

The Swedish central bank (Sveriges Riksbank) has published a report on stablecoins that explores their benefits and risks. The report also analyzes how central banks around the world are setting policies for stablecoin issuers, revealing a de facto convergence in policy between the US and Europe, despite different regulatory frameworks.
The Riksbank's analysis identified three key areas of central bank policy: whether issuers have access to the central bank's settlement system, whether they can use central bank reserves as a backing asset, and whether they have access to the central bank's permanent facilities and liquidity support.
Regulators in the United States and Europe have created legal frameworks that technically allow the use of central bank reserves as backing assets, while implementing restrictive measures to limit their use. In Europe, the MiCA (Market Intermediated Crypto Asset Regulation) allows stablecoin reserves to include central bank currencies, although the European Central Bank (ECB) and other European Union central banks, including Sweden's Riksbank, have refused to allow central bank reserves as backing assets for stablecoins. However, the new ECB rules allow non-bank payment service providers to use central bank accounts for payment purposes, maintaining only a balance sufficient for transaction flow.