The Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy urged the EU to review Tokenized SEPA payments
European financial institutions should assess whether the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) can be extended to tokenized payments, Bank of Italy Deputy Governor Chiara Scotti said, as policymakers look for ways to make the euro-denominated settlement a hub for digital finance.
In a speech Monday at the Digital Assets and Monetary Policy Transfer Workshop in Rome, Scotti called the SEPA token expansion “an important area for reflection,” saying Europe's existing payments framework offers balance, common standards and interoperability.
Her comments come as the Eurosystem prepares a pilot for PONTES, an initiative to establish distributed ledger technology to connect market DLT platforms to TARGET services and settle transactions with central bank funds. The pilot is expected in the third quarter of 2026.
The European Central Bank (ECB) is also preparing a long-term roadmap for Europe's financial ecosystem, expected to be completed by 2028, as policymakers weigh how deposits, stablecoins and central bank money should coexist.
The ECB has stated that it is looking for ways to bring central bank money to DLT, as concerns about the adoption of a stable coin outside the euro “could have serious consequences for European monetary sovereignty”, such as reducing the role of the euro and creating dependence on foreign settlement assets.
Banca d'Italia, ECB, EABCN and CEPR Workshop on ‘Transmission of Digital Assets and Monetary Policy'. Source: Bank of Italy
The ECB said adopting a stablecoin could change bank deposits.
The ECB has previously outlined the risks associated with the widespread adoption of stablecoins.
In the year In a report published in November 2025, the ECB He said the widespread adoption of stablecoins could lead to large bank deposit outflows as households replace some of their bank deposits with stablecoin holdings.
“A surge in stablecoins could result in an outflow of retail deposits, reducing an important source of funding for banks and generally leading to volatile funding.”
In the year In a working paper published on March 4, 2026, the ECB highlighted additional concerns.
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Later on March 23, Piero Cipollone, a member of the ECB's executive board, said that both tokenized deposits and stablecoins need tokenized central bank money as a public settlement anchor for the balance of the European tokenized financial system, Cointelegraph reported.
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