The guidance highlights that the transfer function of an SA is comparable to the transfer function performed by other types of financial market infrastructure (FMI). As a result, an SA that performs this transfer function is considered an FMI for the purpose of applying the PFMI and, if determined by relevant authorities to be systemically important, the SA as a whole would be expected to observe all relevant principles in the PFMI.
SAs may present some notable and novel features as compared with existing FMIs. These features relate to:
- the potential use of settlement assets that are neither central bank money nor commercial bank money and carry additional financial risk;
- the interdependencies between multiple SA functions;
- the degree of decentralisation of operations and/or governance; and
- a potentially large-scale deployment of emerging technologies such as distributed ledger technology.
Given these features of SAs, the guidance elaborates aspects related to:
- governance;
- framework for the comprehensive management of risks;
- settlement finality; and
- money settlements.
The guidance also provides considerations to assist authorities in determining whether a stablecoin arrangement is systemically important.
