For a bank, payment or e-money institution, fintech or corporate treasury deciding whether to issue a stablecoin, use an existing one, or pay out through corridors.
Most institutions should start by integrating a regulated token such as EURC or USDC. Issuing your own e-money token under MiCA takes a credit institution or e-money institution licence, a reserve, and a network that will hold and accept the token. Which route fits depends on four facts: whether you hold or will obtain such a licence, whether the token must carry your brand, whether you hold or transfer tokens for clients, and whether your clients hold the token themselves.
This guide gives the four starting questions we hear most, the screen we run in a first call to pick a starting route, and the six workstreams a mandate can cover, from the route to the books. The screen is indicative, not legal advice: the route is confirmed in a route decision memo, with your counsel.
Scope: stablecoins under MiCA in the European Union, with the ACPR and the AMF as French supervisors, and payout corridors from Europe to Africa and the Middle East. Not covered: tax treatment, retail wallets, licensing outside the EU. Last reviewed: 24 October 2026.
Pick the question closest to yours. You see where the mandate starts, which of the six workstreams it touches, and what you hold once the decision phase closes.
You are a bank, an e-money institution or a platform, and you need to know whether issuing is worth a licence, a reserve and a distribution effort, or whether EURC or USDC does the job.
EMT issuer, CASP, or neither. You need the answer, the supervisor and the obligations that come with it before you design anything.
Payouts, payroll or aid from Europe, received as local money in a bank account, a mobile money wallet or at a cash point.
Liquidity, redemption timing, custody approvals and reconciliation break as volumes grow. You need the operating model, not another demo.
The screen we run in a first call. It is indicative, not legal advice: the route decision memo is where the answer is tested, with your counsel.
Four routes into stablecoins, from the lightest to the heaviest.
The fastest route: you settle in EURC or USDC through a regulated partner, and the issuer carries the reserve and redemption.
You hold, exchange or transfer tokens issued by others on behalf of clients, which makes you a crypto-asset service provider.
Your brand on the token, without your own e-money licence: the licensed partner issues, holds the reserve and redeems.
Full control of the token and the reserve income, at the cost of a licence, a reserve, redemption at par and a distribution effort.
From the first decision to the bank account. Most mandates start with the first two; the others follow from what they decide. The workstreams your question touches are marked.
Four routes compared: accept existing tokens such as EURC or USDC, offer services to clients as a CASP, distribute a branded token from a licensed issuer, or issue your own EMT. Each is scored on licence, cost, time to market and control, and we recommend one.
Which MiCA role each activity gives you, EMT issuer, ART issuer or CASP, and who supervises it: the ACPR and the AMF in France, NYDFS or MAS where relevant. DORA, the Travel Rule and AML obligations are tied to a design decision and an owner, and the file is prepared with your counsel.
For issuers: reserve composition, redemption at par and its windows and cut-offs, and operational liquidity and capital buffers sized against stress scenarios, so redemptions hold under pressure.
Europe to Africa and the Middle East: the licensed off-ramp partner in each market, how its payout liquidity is prefunded, where FX conversion happens, payout to bank accounts, mobile money or cash pickup, and who owns the exception when a payout fails after the token has moved.
Custody designed as a control first: signers, approval thresholds and recovery, with MPC, HSM or multisig. Then networks, custodians, screening tools and Travel Rule providers, compared with the trade-offs written down.
Token balances and transfers brought into the systems finance already runs, with a reconciliation that matches every transfer to a ledger entry, a provider reference and a bank movement.
A 30-minute call to test your starting route and see which of the six workstreams your mandate needs.
Discuss your stablecoin route