The Payment Expert Podcast is joined by Elixirr’s Keith Bear to discuss stablecoin regulation on both sides of the Atlantic, the UK’s tokenised deposit pilot, and where account-to-account payments go next
In the latest episode of the Payment Expert Podcast, Keith Bear, Associate Partner at Elixirr and a Fellow at the University of Cambridge‘s Centre for Alternative Finance, says bank investment in digital money has diverged between the US and the UK since the GENIUS Act passed, with US institutions moving on stablecoins and UK banks concentrating on tokenised deposits.
Bear points to OpenUSD, the consortium stablecoin announced by Open Standard on 30 June 2026, which has more than 140 partners including over 30 banks alongside IBM, Samsung and Coinbase, as an illustration of the pace of change in the US.
US banks and crypto firms remain split on remuneration, Bear says, because rewards and incentives paid on stablecoin balances are a core part of Coinbase’s business model and banks see the arrangement as an “unfair playing field” against US checking accounts.
Bank positions will settle once the CLARITY Act is clear, he says, noting that a significant number of large US banks are participating in a clearing house tokenised deposit network as well as in Open USD.
Stablecoins: the UK regime
The Bank of England dropped its proposed £20,000 individual holding limit on 22 June 2026, replacing it with a temporary £40bn cap on the issuance of any single systemic stablecoin, a change Bear, who gave input to two of the Bank’s consultations on systemic stablecoins, describes as remarkable.
The rules are not yet in force and the UK cryptoasset regime does not take effect until 25 October 2027, though Bear says the clarity is enough for firms to start building capability now.
Seven institutions have joined the Great British Tokenised Deposit project – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Monzo, Nationwide, NatWest and Santander – building a shared platform covering remortgaging, locking funds for peer-to-peer marketplace purchases, and digital bond settlement.
No UK bank is actively considering issuing a stablecoin as far as Bear is aware, though he expects some to provide on and off ramps depending on demand from their customer base.
Revolut, which is testing a sterling stablecoin in the Financial Conduct Authority‘s (FCA’s) sandbox, is not part of the GBTD group.
Bear says the question for Revolut and Meta is whether a sterling stablecoin stays below the systemic threshold and under FCA supervision, or becomes systemic, at which point regulation passes to the Bank of England and the £40bn cap applies. HM Treasury has not fully defined that tipping point, he says.
UK stablecoins will not pay remuneration, Bear says, so adoption will depend on the use cases banks build and the functionality customers ask for, with cross-border payments the likely focus because domestic payments already run efficiently through Faster Payments.
Wallets, pay by bank and Pix
GBTD participants have to provide wallets to hold deposit tokens and build the applications that run on them, which means customers will hold a bank digital asset wallet alongside an Apple or Android wallet built on different technology.
Bear says the two may integrate or the split may continue, and that the answer will depend on whether the divided experience proves too clunky for merchant and person-to-person payments.
Pay by bank lacks chargebacks, Section 75 protection and the rewards that flow through credit cards, Bear says, so he expects adoption to come first in recurring bill payments made on a phone or laptop, with point of sale staying with the card networks for some time yet.
Pix accounts for about 47% of payments in Brazil against 22% in cash, 17% on debit cards and 12% on credit cards, Bear says, an outcome he attributes to Brazil’s central bank mandating the scheme, standardising the user experience and making the platform free to use.
The UK achieved open banking adoption through a comparable CMA mandate on the banks, he says, and US account-to-account volumes remain several years from the levels seen in Brazil or expected in Europe.
Wero and the digital euro both address digital sovereignty, Bear says, pointing to the European Central Bank‘s repeated concerns about European dependence on US card networks.
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