Bank of Italy Deputy Governor Chiara Scotti urged lenders to develop adaptable digital-finance systems, saying early preparation could help banks retain influence as tokenized markets and customer interfaces evolve.
Speaking in Milan on Oct. 23, Scotti said banks can test ideas in limited stages and revise their commitments as they learn because both demand and the market’s eventual design remain uncertain. She focused on capabilities that can work across different setups, including adaptable infrastructure, interoperable data practices, digital-asset skills and programmable workflows. She also called for closer collaboration among teams responsible for treasury, payments and securities. Her speech set no budget or adoption deadline.
Boston Consulting Group estimated in a model of potential bank profits from digital-asset custody that a regional bank pairing custody with other digital-asset services could add $80 million to $100 million in profit. The figure was modeled, not reported earnings.
Scotti warned that customers may increasingly reach financial services through interfaces controlled by platforms or other intermediaries. Banks could then become less visible and have less influence over service design, she said. Banks still create money through lending, provide balance-sheet capacity and liquidity, and maintain trusted customer relationships. Lenders with strong interfaces could deepen those ties, while new entrants could use payments to reach customers and expand into deposits, savings or credit. Smaller institutions may have less bargaining power and fewer resources to maintain connections to several platforms.
Firms may prioritize their immediate needs over paying for shared standards, Scotti said, while early proprietary choices can become harder to dislodge. She warned that if private money became the main settlement medium for wholesale financial transactions, the system could return to a “pre-RTGS world.” On payment systems, she said, “The monetary anchor should remain common, even if the payment rails are not.”
ECB data put public-blockchain tokenized assets at €7.4 billion in early 2024 and €38 billion in February 2026. The ECB compared the February estimate with €241 trillion in global assets at the end of 2025; its calculation excludes repos and may not capture assets on private networks.
The Eurosystem launched Pontes on Sept. 21 to let wholesale transactions in tokenized assets settle in central bank money. Its Appia initiative is working toward a blueprint for an integrated digital financial ecosystem by 2028. The European Banking Authority (EBA) said in its September response to a consultation on the Markets in Crypto-assets Regulation (MiCA) review that it plans to report in the fourth quarter of 2026 on tokenized-deposit developments and features that may inform regulatory classification.
