The European Banking Authority (EBA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) on June 2 to strengthen cooperation in supervising entities engaged in cross-border stablecoin activities.
The agreement, under the European Union’s (EU) Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), establishes principles and procedures to facilitate information exchange and the coordination of supervisory activities related to stablecoins issued in both New York State and the European Union, including by entities directly supervised by the EBA under MiCA.
According to the EBA, the MoU also provides a framework for mutual assistance in ongoing supervision and for timely coordination in crisis or emergency situations.
“This agreement marks an important milestone in strengthening transatlantic cooperation on stablecoin supervision and ensuring that cross-border activities are conducted to the highest standards,” EBA Chair François-Louis Michaud said. “It reflects our commitment to building a strong, effective, and globally coordinated supervisory framework for crypto-assets.”
The global stablecoin market has risen exponentially over the past few years. In 2025, stablecoin payments volume reached $390 billion annually, more than doubling 2024 levels and up from less than $30 billion in 2020, according to a recent report from business management consultant firm McKinsey & Company. This meteoric rise has shown no signs of stopping, leading United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last November to predict that stablecoin supply could reach $3 trillion by 2030, and multinational investment bank Citi (NASDAQ: C) to forecast that stablecoins could reach $4 trillion by the end of 2030.
In the EU under MiCA, which came fully into force in December 2025, the EBA is entrusted with direct supervisory responsibility over issuers of “significant” asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and electronic money tokens (EMTs); the former being stablecoins that purport to maintain a stable value by referencing another value or right, the latter those designed to maintain a stable value by reference to one currency.
The EBA designates a token as “significant” when it meets at least three of the following criteria: more than 10 million users in the EU; issuance value above EUR 5 billion ($5.81 billion); daily transaction volume above EUR 500 million ($580.9 million) in the EU; daily transaction count above 2.5 million in the EU; the issuer is also active as a crypto-asset service provider for the token; significant interconnection with the financial system; and/or the token is used as a means of payment by more than one million transactions per day.
When it comes to the supervision of these stablecoins, MiCA allows the EBA to enter into exchange of information agreements with third-country supervisory authorities to ensure that decentralized or cross-border assets can be adequately assessed and overseen. This is what the MoU with NYDFS represents.
“Effective financial regulation has always depended on strong relationships between regulators, and that principle holds firm in the digital asset space,” said NYDFS Acting Superintendent Kaitlin Asrow. “This MoU reflects the Department’s deep commitment to cross-border supervision and collaboration in order to protect consumers, regulated entities, and markets.”
In its June 2 announcement, the EBA echoed this sentiment, saying that the cooperation framework “reflects the growing international dimension of stablecoin markets and supports effective and consistent supervision across jurisdictions.”
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