InMarketing Today

The European Central Bank will put a "small portion" of its own funds into tokenised securities, Global Government Finance reports today, settling the trades in central bank money through Pontes, the Eurosystem platform that went live last week. Christine Lagarde has called Pontes the "digital euro made available for banks". The first purchases will be euro-denominated bonds from eurozone governments, agencies and supranational institutions, with the platform fully implemented by 2028.

Two lessons sit in one announcement. The first is skin in the game: by investing its own money, the ECB turns a policy position into a commitment, and learns the full lifecycle first-hand rather than advising from the sidelines. The second is naming: Lagarde borrowed the familiar "digital euro" label to give a piece of wholesale plumbing instant recognition. Not everyone is sold. OpenPayd's chief executive points out that Pontes still relies on the existing TARGET infrastructure for settlement finality.

If you are asking clients to trust a new asset class, show them where your own money sits: a position on your own balance sheet says more than any white paper. And watch who the ECB buys first. Sovereign, agency and supranational issuance is where tokenised euro markets will build their track record, so that is where your proof points should come from.

Stablecoins, tokenised deposits and central bank digital currencies will carry about 4% of global payments volume by 2030, according to Capgemini's World Banking Report, eating into high-margin bank revenue from foreign exchange spreads, correspondent banking, float and transaction fees. Capgemini surveyed more than 1,100 corporates with revenues above $1bn: only one in three is satisfied with its primary bank, and 57% lack access to live payment status, cash positions or transparent pricing.

The good news for banks is brand trust: 71% of corporates would choose a bank over a fintech for tokenised payments at equivalent cost and quality. The bad news is that the preference is conditional. Nearly 60% would buy stablecoin services from non-banks if their bank fails to keep pace, and 36% of their B2B payment volume already flows through non-banks. Incumbency is a lease, not a freehold.

Tell your corporate clients what your tokenised payments proposition is now, even if it is a roadmap rather than a product, because silence reads as absence. And close the visibility gap first. A client who cannot see where their payment is will not believe your innovation story, however well it is told.

Paul Penrose, co-founder of Finextra, retires this week after 26 years running its newsdesk, his fellow co-founder Steve Ellis writes today. Penrose filed 36,122 stories for the site, nearly four a day since it launched in 2000. The idea was hatched over a beer at a Sibos, and Penrose steps away while this year's is under way in Miami.

Finextra's founding bet was simple: a niche audience of banking, payments and technology professionals would come, and keep coming, if someone published their news on the day it broke. More than 40,000 members later, the bet has produced the sector's trade paper of record, built on a journalist's nose for a story rather than a content calendar. Ellis, tellingly, describes himself back then as "a marketing guy with a collection of tech clients".

Know the reporters who cover your beat before you need them, and send them news, not noise. Specialist trade titles shape how your buyers see you far more than broad reach does, and the journalists who run them remember who wasted their time.