Author: Rinat Mirzaitov

The European Central Bank is increasingly presenting the digital euro as more than a payments project, positioning it instead as part of Europe’s broader response to a more fragile, fragmented and uncertain global economy. In speeches delivered in mid-January, senior ECB figures linked digital public money to monetary sovereignty, financial stability and Europe’s ability to withstand geopolitical shocks. Speaking on 14 January, the European Central Bank argued that the foundations of the global economic order are shifting in ways that directly affect the euro area. Trade fragmentation, geopolitical tensions and growing reliance on non-European financial infrastructure are no longer abstract…

Wall Street’s largest banks are pushing back expectations for US interest rate cuts, signalling a growing consensus that the Federal Reserve will keep policy tight for longer as the labour market remains resilient. The shift follows December employment data that, while softer on headline job growth, failed to show the kind of deterioration that would force early easing. According to Reuters, J.P. Morgan now expects the Fed’s next move to be a rate hike in 2027, withdrawing its earlier outlook for a cut this year. The bank cited a falling unemployment rate and steady wage growth as evidence that labour…

The US digital investment platform Betterment has confirmed a data breach after hackers used compromised third-party systems to send fake crypto scam messages to customers, underscoring how social engineering has become one of the most persistent security threats facing fintech firms. The incident, disclosed on January 12, did not involve access to customer accounts or assets. But it did expose personal data and allowed attackers to impersonate Betterment in official-looking communications, a scenario that regulators and financial institutions across Europe are increasingly wary of. According to Betterment, an unauthorised actor gained access on January 9 through social engineering tactics targeting…

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has renewed debate over the future of digital money by arguing that today’s decentralised stablecoins remain fundamentally flawed. In a recent post on X, Buterin outlined why current designs fall short of supporting a resilient, long-term digital monetary system, a critique with clear relevance for Europe’s digital euro debate. Buterin’s central claim is that decentralised stablecoins have not yet solved three core problems. First, most remain tightly anchored to the US dollar, importing the economic and political assumptions of a foreign currency into global crypto markets. Second, they rely on price oracles that can be influenced…

As fintech looks toward 2026, the biggest shifts may not be where growth accelerates fastest, but where long-held assumptions quietly break down. According to a recent analysis published by Forbes, founders and investors should prepare for a period defined less by hype and more by uncomfortable realism. Rather than fuelling frictionless global expansion, artificial intelligence is likely to slow it. While AI makes localisation cheaper, Forbes argues that regulatory complexity, capital discipline, and trust remain decisive barriers in financial services. The result is not global blitzscaling, but rapid local replication of proven business models. Depth in a home market, not…

Europe should no longer expect a return to economic normality. That is the core message from Christine Lagarde, who argues that volatility, fragmentation, and social division are no longer temporary shocks but structural features of the global economy. Speaking in a reflective interview at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Lagarde laid out a worldview that helps explain the ECB’s cautious, trust-focused approach to policy, including its work on the digital euro. The ECB president describes a world that has become more prone to shocks and less coherent, shaped by geopolitics, technological change, and widening inequality. This is not a…

As the European Central Bank prepares key design decisions on a potential digital euro, new research from Austria challenges one of the project’s most persistent assumptions. While privacy dominates political and public debate, consumers appear far more motivated by protection against loss and tangible financial benefits. The findings suggest that practical design choices, not ideological arguments, may ultimately determine whether Europeans actually use a digital euro. The findings come from a new policy brief published by SUERF, drawing on a large-scale discrete choice experiment conducted by economists at the Oesterreichische Nationalbank. The study tested how around 1,400 Austrian residents respond…

Stablecoins are no longer just a bridge between crypto markets and fiat money. According to a new 2026 outlook from Moody’s, they are rapidly evolving into a form of institutional digital cash, increasingly used by banks, asset managers and market infrastructure providers for settlement, collateral and liquidity management. In its report, Moody’s argues that the financial system is entering a phase where tokenised assets and on-chain settlement are moving beyond pilots and into early production use. Stablecoins, particularly those backed by fiat currency or short-term government securities, are emerging as the preferred settlement asset within these new digital market structures.…

The debate over stablecoin regulation in the United States has taken on a sharper political edge. In a letter sent on January 5, community bank leaders warned the United States Senate that loopholes in current law could allow stablecoins to drain deposits from local banks, undermining lending to small businesses, households, and farmers. The letter was written by members of the American Bankers Association Community Bankers Council and is explicitly framed as a defence of relationship banking. The authors argue that while innovation in payments is welcome, stablecoins that mimic interest-bearing deposits risk destabilising the funding base of community banks.…

The European Central Bank’s digital euro remains a sovereign central bank digital currency (CBDC) project distinct from private cryptocurrencies, but payments innovators such as Ripple say their technology could serve as part of the broader digital euro payments ecosystem. Ripple’s enterprise blockchain and liquidity tools, widely used for cross-border bank transfers, present potential use cases in bridging CBDC rails and improving settlement efficiency, industry advocates argue. The digital euro, designed to function like digital cash issued directly by the ECB, is in its preparatory phase with a potential pilot planned for 2027 and wider launch as early as 2029, subject…