CPMI reaffirms central bank money as the anchor of trust in payments

The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), hosted by the Bank for International Settlements, published a report on Thursday, October 29, 2026 on the roles of central banks and central bank money in the evolving payment system. It reaffirms central bank money as the settlement anchor while treating stablecoins, tokenised deposits and programmable platforms as part of the payments mix.

• The report sets out four central bank roles: issuer, operator, overseer and catalyst, each with its own policy questions.
• It covers fast payment systems, non-bank providers, tokenised deposits, stablecoins and programmable platforms, and finds both efficiency gains and new risk channels.
• The release gives no deadlines or requirements; the open issue is how central banks treat account access for new entrants.

• 4 central bank roles the report asks authorities to consider
• 5 innovation areas examined, from fast payments to programmable platforms
• 23 years since the August 2003 CPSS report it builds on
• 2 years since the October 2024 G20 tokenisation report it follows

The CPMI’s release announces a report titled The roles of central banks and central bank money in the evolving payment system. It says technological innovation, changing user demand and new types of entities and infrastructures are transforming payment systems, with possible implications for safety, efficiency and trust in money.

Fabio Panetta, Governor of the Banca d’Italia and CPMI Chair, is quoted in the release: “Central banks cannot watch this frontier from a distance”. The release does not say when the committee approved the report.

What the report says about money and the four roles

The report builds on the 2003 framework from the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems, the CPMI’s predecessor. That earlier work is The role of central bank money in payment systems, published in August 2003. The new report considers what has changed in the intervening decades and outlines policy tools, considerations and trade-offs.

Central bank money serves as the anchor of trust in the payment system, provides the safest and most liquid settlement asset for systemically important systems and supports convertibility at par among different means of payment.

CPMI media release, October 29, 2026

The release describes private sector entities as drivers of innovation and competition that offer services tailored to diverse user needs. It calls the relationship between central bank money and private settlement assets complementary.

The four areas are specific. As issuer, central banks consider which entities have access to central bank accounts, for which services and on which terms. As operator, they weigh modernising existing infrastructure or building new platforms against resilience, innovation and implementation risks.

As overseer, they assess whether stablecoins and tokenised arrangements perform functions similar to financial market infrastructures, and judge their systemic importance, governance and operational resilience. As catalyst, they convene stakeholders on collective action problems, support market solutions and encourage industry standards.

Where the practical pressure falls

The issuer question carries the most commercial weight. Access to central bank accounts determines who can settle in the asset the report calls the safest and most liquid. For non-bank payment providers and any stablecoin or tokenised deposit arrangement, the answer on access, services and terms shapes both cost and risk.

The overseer question is framed as a functional test. The release asks whether emerging arrangements perform functions similar to financial market infrastructures, not whether they carry a given label. An arrangement that does so and is systemically important faces scrutiny of its governance and operational resilience, according to the report’s framing.

The report also finds that innovations “may introduce new interdependencies and alter the way credit, liquidity, operational and cyber risks arise and are transmitted”. That is a statement about transmission across the system, which is why it calls for a holistic approach in which an action in one area may affect outcomes in another.

The report follows the BIS and CPMI report to the G20, Tokenisation in the context of money and other assets: concepts and implications for central banks, published in October 2024. The 2024 paper dealt with tokenisation; this one widens the frame to the whole payment system, including commercial bank money and non-bank means of payment.

What the release leaves open

The release does not say which central banks should grant account access to stablecoin issuers or non-bank providers, or on what terms. It does not say which existing stablecoin or tokenised arrangements perform financial market infrastructure functions. It names no jurisdiction and gives no timetable, comment period or implementation date.

The report itself acknowledges that “central bank policies may vary across jurisdictions” is the premise for its call for sustained international cooperation. That wording is paraphrased in the release, and it offers no mechanism for aligning divergent national choices.

The BlockWest read. We think the account access question will decide which private settlement assets can credibly claim par convertibility. The report offers a framework, not a rule, and says policies will differ by jurisdiction. Issuers and banks should therefore plan for uneven access terms across markets, with cross-border arrangements bearing the compliance cost of that unevenness. The functional oversight test also means design choices, not branding, will determine who is treated like market infrastructure.

The release sets no follow-up date. The next signal is how individual central banks answer the access and oversight questions for stablecoin and tokenised arrangements, which the CPMI leaves to each jurisdiction.

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