Stablecoins could make international payments faster and cheaper, but wider use may weaken monetary control and expose emerging economies to sharper capital-flow shocks, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned.
Speaking at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium on 28 August, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said tokenisation and stablecoins may eventually alter how money moves across borders.
She called for internationally coordinated regulation, strict rules for issuers’ reserve pools and closer supervision of domestic intermediaries.
Cross-border transfers can remain slow and expensive because payments may pass through several banks, currencies and regulatory systems before reaching the recipient.
A stablecoin is a digital token designed to maintain a fixed price relative to another asset, usually the US dollar. Tokenisation means recording money or another asset as a digital token that can be transferred on a shared electronic ledger.
Georgieva said the technology could increase competition and lower payment costs. She cautioned, however, that blockchain-based finance remains a small experiment within the wider international payment system.
The Financial Stability Board estimated in July that stablecoins accounted for less than 0.2% of cross-border payment volumes in 2025. Most claims about their effect on international payments therefore concern possible future adoption, not present dominance.
Dollar-linked tokens could pressure emerging economies
The IMF’s main concern is that easier access to dollar-linked tokens could make it simpler for money to leave countries during periods of financial stress.
A Bank for International Settlements paper published in May estimated that approximately 98% of stablecoin value was denominated in US dollars.
That concentration could encourage what economists call currency substitution. Households and companies begin holding or using a foreign currency instead of their domestic currency, reducing the influence of local interest-rate decisions.
Georgieva said stablecoins could also make capital controls more porous, facilitate tax evasion and increase exchange-rate volatility. Roughly one-quarter of IMF member countries still use capital controls, which restrict some movement of money across borders.
She advised exposed countries to regulate local stablecoin intermediaries, maintain sound banking systems and increase their foreign-exchange buffers. Those buffers are reserves of foreign currencies that central banks can use during market stress.
Faster financial links can transmit help and risk through the same channels. As we recently reported, a theoretical study of interbank networks found that additional connections initially improved risk-sharing, but could eventually encourage banks to hold fewer reserves of their own.
Common rules would need to cross borders
Georgieva said stablecoin issuers should hold safe and liquid reserve assets so that customers can redeem tokens at their promised price, including during periods of market strain.
Georgieva also argued that comparable financial products should face comparable rules. Without international coordination, companies may move activity towards countries with weaker oversight, while risks continue to cross borders.
Banks may face another problem if customers transfer deposits into stablecoins. A smaller deposit base can raise bank funding costs and reduce the money available for lending to households and businesses.
The IMF speech did not argue that stablecoins should replace banks or existing payment systems. Georgieva pointed to projects connecting regulated national systems, including the European Central Bank’s TIPS instant-payment service and Project Nexus in Asia.
The BIS estimated stablecoin market capitalisation at about $320 billion at the end of May 2026. It said current cross-border performance was uneven once conversion charges, price spreads and the cost of moving money into and out of tokens were included.
Stablecoins therefore remain far from becoming the main infrastructure for international payments. Their limited scale gives regulators time to decide how redemption, reserves and cross-border supervision should work before adoption becomes much broader.
