Regulation
Bank of Italy to publish cryptocurrency guidelines, governor says
ROME (Reuters) – The Bank of Italy will publish guidelines in the coming days on how to apply upcoming European Union rules on cryptocurrencies to preserve the smooth functioning of the payments system, Governor Fabio Panetta said on Tuesday.
In a speech delivered to the Italian Banking Association (ABI), Panetta said that the EU regulation, called the Market in Crypto Asset Regulation (MiCAR), has deemed electronic money tokens (EMT) and asset-reference tokens (ART) to meet the requirements to be used as means of payment.
The value of EMT is tied to a single official currency, while that of ART depends on one or more underlying assets.
“Our assessment is that the only instruments that can serve as means of payment while fully preserving public trust are EMTs, electronic money tokens, which can be issued by banks or electronic money institutions,” Panetta said.
(Reporting by Valentina Za, editing by Gavin Jones)