MiCA Review: Who Is Liable for Cross-Border, Multi-Issuer Stablecoins?
A stablecoin can look like one product while hiding several issuers, legal systems and redemption obligations. The EBA wants the EU’s MiCA review to confront a deceptively simple question: when a cross-border issuer falters, who owes holders their money—and can that entity reach the reserves when markets seize up?
Brussels, Belgium
Oct 4, 2026
A stablecoin can circulate as a single product while being issued by several legal entities. For European supervisors, that creates a question that aggregate reserve figures cannot answer: which issuer must repay a holder, and which assets are legally available to meet that claim?
The European Banking Authority has identified third-country multi-issuer arrangements as a priority for the European Commission’s review of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation. In its response to the Commission’s targeted consultation, the EBA also recommends reconsidering mandatory bank-deposit allocations and developing a dedicated framework for crypto-asset lending and borrowing.
The recommendations are advisory, not new rules. But they expose an important boundary in MiCA’s design: obligations imposed on an identifiable EU issuer do not necessarily resolve the risks of a token issued through several entities across different jurisdictions.
One token does not necessarily mean one debtor
A multi-issuer arrangement can involve an EU-authorised entity and an issuer outside the Union issuing tokens intended to circulate interchangeably. Holders may encounter the same branding, trading markets and technical infrastructure, even where the underlying legal obligations differ.
That distinction becomes consequential when a holder seeks redemption. Does the EU issuer owe repayment for every circulating token, or only for tokens issued under its responsibility? If it accepts tokens issued by an overseas affiliate, what enforceable arrangement gives it access to the corresponding backing?
These are questions about the structure of the arrangement, not conclusions that every multi-issuer model is deficient. Shared infrastructure and coordinated issuance can work. The supervisory problem is establishing whether the legal allocation of liabilities matches the resources available to discharge them.
A group may report sufficient reserves overall while an individual issuer lacks immediate access to the assets needed for its own redemption obligations. An intra-group transfer that works routinely may become slower—or unavailable—during an operational failure, banking disruption or insolvency.
What MiCA already requires
MiCA’s existing text distinguishes between two principal stablecoin categories. E-money tokens reference one official currency; asset-referenced tokens seek to maintain a stable value by referencing another value or right, or a combination of them.
For e-money tokens, Article 48 requires the issuer to be an authorised credit institution or electronic money institution. Article 49 provides holders with a claim against the issuer and a right to redemption at any time and at par value.
For asset-referenced tokens, Article 39 establishes redemption rights against the issuer, with redemption linked to the market value of the referenced assets or delivery of those assets. Article 36 requires a reserve of assets and legal segregation intended to protect it from claims by the issuer’s other creditors, including in insolvency.
The distinction matters. A euro-referenced e-money token and an asset-referenced token do not have identical backing or redemption rules. Treating all stablecoins as if they were subject to one uniform reserve regime would obscure the legislative problem.
Nor does common ownership automatically make an overseas affiliate responsible for an EU issuer’s debts. The review therefore needs to examine both the commercial arrangement and the enforceable obligations of each participating entity.
The cross-border enforcement problem
The EBA’s prudential concern is broader than whether an EU issuer meets its requirements in isolation. Supervisors also need to understand dependencies on entities beyond their direct reach.
Those dependencies can include reserve custody, liquidity provision, token issuance systems and redemption processing. Outsourcing a function does not, by itself, remove an issuer’s regulatory responsibility. But retaining legal responsibility is not the same as having reliable access to the resources necessary to fulfil it.
The Commission’s challenge is to close that gap without assuming that consolidated group resources are freely transferable. Foreign insolvency law, contractual restrictions and competing creditor claims can all affect whether assets held abroad remain available to an EU issuer.
Any legislative response would need to clarify which entity owes which obligation, what resources must support that obligation and what supervisors can verify. Information-sharing with foreign authorities may help, but it cannot substitute for an enforceable redemption claim.
For firms, the practical implication is that a group-wide reserve statement is only the starting point. Issuance records, custody arrangements, redemption terms and intra-group contracts must explain how the structure operates when an affiliate cannot perform—not merely when business proceeds normally.
Bank deposits: liquidity with a counterparty attached
The EBA also asks the Commission to reconsider minimum mandatory allocations to commercial-bank deposits.
Here, too, the legal detail matters. MiCA does not prescribe a single deposit percentage for every stablecoin. Article 36 sets a minimum deposit allocation of 30% for each official currency referenced by an asset-referenced token. Article 54 separately requires at least 30% of funds received in exchange for e-money tokens to be deposited in separate accounts with credit institutions. Additional requirements apply to significant tokens.
Deposits provide access to cash for redemptions, but also create exposure to the banks receiving those funds. Diversifying reserve investments can reduce some concentrations while introducing different liquidity, market and custody risks.
The policy question is therefore not simply whether bank deposits are safe. It is whether mandatory allocations produce an appropriate balance between ready cash, diversification and resilience during simultaneous pressure on banks and token issuers.
Lending is a separate regulatory gap
The EBA’s call for a dedicated crypto-asset lending and borrowing framework concerns a different part of the market: arrangements that create leverage or promise withdrawals while assets remain lent out, pledged or otherwise unavailable.
Such maturity and liquidity mismatches can amplify runs. Stablecoins may be used within those arrangements, but regulating a token issuer does not automatically regulate the lending business built around its token.
A workable framework would need to identify the activities covered, the responsible entities and the treatment of arrangements described as decentralised. The label alone does not establish who controls a service or whether obligations can be enforced.
Advice now, legislation later
The EBA’s response does not amend MiCA, impose additional capital requirements or change redemption rights. It is also distinct from ESMA’s contribution to the review.
If the Commission proposes amendments to MiCA, those changes would normally require agreement by the European Parliament and Council. Supervisory guidance and secondary legislation can address some implementation issues, but cannot be treated as substitutes for changes to the regulation’s underlying scope or legal obligations.
The decisive test is whether the eventual response makes liability clearer before a crisis. For a stablecoin spanning several issuers and jurisdictions, sufficient backing in aggregate is necessary—but it is not enough. Holders and supervisors must also be able to identify who owes redemption, where the backing sits and whether that issuer can actually use it.