The regulatory landscape for stablecoins and e-money tokens (EMTs) in Europe has shifted dramatically. Under recent European Banking Authority (EBA) guidance, crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) face a complex crossover between MiCA frameworks and traditional payment service mandates.
In this fireside interview on 16 June 2026 titled “How can CASPs support stablecoins in 2026?”, Marcus Mølleskov, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Januar, and Uve Poom, Chief Operating Officer at CryptoSwift, break down the operational realities of the dual-licensing regime, the future impact of PSD3/PSR, and how platforms can maintain compliant transactional infrastructure.
Defining the Dual-Licensing Perimeter
Uve Poom (UP): Let’s dive right into the core issue surrounding the dual-licensing regime. How did this framework come to be, and what is the current sentiment you are picking up in the market, Marcus?
Marcus Mølleskov (MM): It stems directly from the underlying text of MiCA. The EBA issued a guidance letter clarifying that MiCA equates fiat-pegged e-money tokens to traditional “funds.” Consequently, any commercial transaction executed using an EMT is legally classified as a payment transaction, rendering it subject to payment service licensing.
The EBA noted that this structural requirement was largely an unexpected outcome of the legislative drafting. They explicitly signaled to the European Commission that this overlap should be remediated in upcoming legislative updates, such as the Third Payment Services Directive (PSD3) or MiCA 2. Because the current statutory text binds their hands, regulators must enforce a dual payment and crypto license if a CASP offers stablecoin custody and transfer capabilities.
UP: The challenge arises because while a completely closed-loop trading environment would sit safely outside that perimeter, exchanges are legally mandated to allow users to withdraw their digital assets. That withdrawal mechanism effectively triggers a payment transmission.
MM: Exactly. Under the current enforcement framework, if you provide stablecoin custody, maintain client token balances, or permit user deposits and withdrawals, your infrastructure is legally categorized as a payment account.
This interpretation extends to first-party transfers. If an over-the-counter (OTC) broker accepts stablecoin deposits to pre-fund a trading account, that routing layer is treated as a payment service. Regulators have been very clear: platforms with a pending payment license application may continue servicing existing EMT users under strict marketing caps, but those without active applications or authorized third-party partnerships must remove stablecoins from their product offerings entirely.
The Impact of PSD3 and Consolidation
UP: Looking at the broader European market, we are seeing a contraction from thousands of legacy virtual asset firms down to a leaner group of authorized CASPs. How many of these remaining entities are actively seeking dual payment permissions versus utilizing third-party partnerships?
MM: The EBA indicated they were tracking more than 100 parallel payment institution applications submitted by entities traversing the MiCA pipeline. However, the operational reality caught many market participants by surprise. Multiple national regulators informed applicants that they lacked the internal administrative capacity to evaluate both a CASP and a payment service license application concurrently ahead of statutory deadlines.
To preserve their stablecoin features, these platforms were directed to secure an authorized partner. At Januar, we established a compliant subcustodial proof-of-concept that satisfied regulatory scrutiny, allowing CASPs to proceed to the final stages of authorization. The fact that prominent platforms are still scrambling to resolve this architecture demonstrates that the industry was not fully prepared for the enforcement timelines.
UP: We observe a matching trend within the Travel Rule and digital asset taxation spaces. The Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR) demands complete counterparty data for both payers and payees, yet significant compliance debt remains due to systemic friction and low interoperability between various technology vendors.
MM: The market is undergoing massive consolidation. Shifting from thousands of unregistered venues to a tightly regulated perimeter means market share is being heavily redistributed. Compliant CASPs are absorbing significant transactional volumes from regional competitors that failed to clear the licensing hurdle. This volume concentration will only intensify as strict reverse-solicitation rules restrict non-EU firms from targeting European enterprises.
Designing the Subcustodial Partnership Model
UP: Given that your infrastructure services these digital asset exchanges, how does Januar structure its compliance architecture to facilitate third-party payments safely?
MM Januar was founded to resolve the systemic debanking issues plaguing the crypto sector by providing secure operational accounts and client Euro settlement via named IBANs. Regarding stablecoins, MiCA explicitly permits an authorized CASP to provide payment services in relation to its core activities, provided it routes those flows through a licensed third-party financial institution.
This is where Januar steps in as an institutional subcustodian. Under this framework, the CASP does not become our direct payment agent, and Januar does not directly onboard or perform Know Your Customer (KYC) checks on the exchange’s retail end-users. The CASP leverages our regulated payment infrastructure to custody and transmit their underlying stablecoins. It functions exactly like a traditional banking relationship: just as a commercial bank account sits beneath your fiat operations, Januar acts as the compliant financial rail sitting beneath your stablecoin architecture.
UP: How does Januar manage its compliance exposure under an indirect subcustodial arrangement?
MM: Our monitoring is focused at the institutional level. We evaluate the corporate activity, operational profiles, and aggregate volume movements of the CASP as a corporate entity. The client CASP retains full, direct responsibility for the onboarding, transaction monitoring, and Travel Rule compliance of their respective end-users. We mitigate our exposure by executing comprehensive due diligence on the CASP’s internal AML policies and control systems before granting access to our rails.
Build, Partner, or Pivot
UP: To summarize the landscape, a CASP wanting to support stablecoin payments can choose between three strategic options: building an independent payment institution stack, partnering with an authorized provider like Januar, or shifting entirely to non-custodial wallet infrastructure.
MM: The boundaries of that third option require careful examination. Regulators prioritize economic substance over technical descriptions. If an exchange provides a “self-custodial” wallet that users can only access or interact with through that specific platform’s interface, authorities will legally designate it as a custodial account and demand a dual license.
A legitimate non-custodial model means the CASP’s architecture must interact directly with user-controlled environments—such as a hardware wallet or MetaMask via smart contracts—where the underlying tokens never touch a corporate corporate wallet address. That represents a fundamental product pivot, turning a centralized venue into a decentralized protocol layer.
UP: What criteria should a corporate compliance team use to decide whether to build their own payment institution capability or leverage an external partner?
MM: If your multi-year product roadmap relies on launching native, heavy consumer payment utilities—such as merchant acquiring infrastructure—investing the capital to build an independent payment institution stack under the upcoming PSD3 and Payment Services Regulation (PSR) makes sense.
However, if your primary business model is operating a trading venue or an OTC desk, building an entirely separate financial institution right before PSD3 updates the rules is highly inefficient. The final draft of PSD3 explicitly outlines an exemption for stablecoin transactions used strictly to pre-fund or settle asset trades, which will ultimately reduce the number of firms requiring dual authorization. Partnering allows you to deploy immediately. Even as an established payment provider already vetted by national competent authorities, our own MiCA application required over 1,500 pages of distinct documentation. The regulatory friction of maintaining dual independent licenses is substantial.
Interoperability and the Future of Verification
UP: Shifting focus to the execution of the Travel Rule: as an intermediary subcustodian, how do you handle the data routing realities for cross-border deposits and withdrawals?
MM: Both the principal CASP and the underlying financial rails share liability under the Travel Rule. For outgoing transactions, our clients pass the required identity metadata directly alongside the transaction initiation via our API, which we then relay down the compliance chain.
Incoming transactions present an architectural challenge: if an originating global venue transmits the Travel Rule payload directly to our client CASP, the data bypasses Januar as the intermediary subcustodian. We are actively collaborating with CryptoSwift to refine these data flows, ensuring that all liable parties maintain access to the necessary compliance ledgers without introducing duplicate workflows.
UP: External venues are typically unaware of the underlying subcustodial layers handling the settlement, making data orchestration essential. When assets are withdrawn to unhosted or self-hosted wallets, who holds the obligation to execute ownership verification?
MM: That obligation rests with our client CASP, as they maintain the direct contractual relationship with the natural person initiating the withdrawal. Januar’s responsibility as an intermediary is to audit their verification methodologies during our periodic reviews and perform targeted sample checks if automated blockchain analytics flag specific transactional risks.
UP: That is the most pragmatic approach to avoid degrading the user experience. Looking toward the horizon, how do you foresee the upcoming PSR’s mandatory Verification of Payee (VoP) rules interacting with digital asset platforms?
MM: The current VoP mandates are designed specifically for traditional credit transfers to verify that a recipient’s legal name matches their IBAN in real time. Enforcing that specific matching framework natively on a public blockchain network is technically unfeasible today.
However, the Travel Rule provides the blueprint for this evolution. It began as a legacy banking standard that was eventually retrofitted onto crypto-assets. Over time, as the crypto compliance space matures, we will likely see similar real-time validation layers standardized across the sector.
Consider the historical timeline: the traditional banking sector spent 15 years designing the ISO 20022 messaging format and another 15 years deploying it. The crypto compliance space was required to design, agree upon, and implement global Travel Rule infrastructure in under two years. The digital asset industry accomplished in twenty-four months what took legacy banking three decades. I am completely confident that our industry will successfully develop robust validation and interoperability protocols well within that timeframe.
UP: I share that confidence. We are already seeing rapid validation developments and vendor interoperability expanding across the Travel Rule network. Marcus, thank you for outlining these structural strategies and showing how subcustodial partnerships are resolving these dual-licensing bottlenecks.
MM: Thank you, Uve. It was a pleasure discussing these frameworks with you.