tokenization

EU Council agrees MISP negotiating position as DLT Pilot Regime review advances

Briefing date

What happened

  • Specific facts/numbers: The Council of the EU agreed the key elements of its negotiating position on the market integration and supervision package on 9 October 2026, while ESMA’s 25 June 2025 review said DLT Pilot Regime uptake had remained limited, with only three authorised infrastructures and minimal live trading activity.
  • Institutions involved: The Council of the EU and ECOFIN are advancing the market integration and supervision package; ESMA reviewed the DLT Pilot Regime; the European Commission is expected to present its own follow-up report; the ECB is part of the broader policy backdrop through its work on tokenised finance.
  • Regulatory/technical context: The DLT Pilot Regime has applied in the EU since 23 March 2023 and creates a framework for DLT-based trading and settlement of financial instruments, while ESMA’s review said current thresholds restrict wider participation and recommended recalibrating them and clarifying the regime’s long-term status.
  • What to watch next: The next identifiable milestone is the European Commission’s follow-up to ESMA’s review and the ensuing EU legislative negotiations on MISP; no separately verified official milestone on a specific new cap level was identified in the accessible source material.

Why it matters

The story matters because the EU is deciding whether tokenised securities infrastructure stays a small-scale pilot or becomes easier to use at commercially meaningful scale, which would affect venue operators, CSDs and issuers across European capital markets.

HKMA Relevance

Direct: EU changes to tokenised market-infrastructure rules could influence competitive and regulatory expectations for Hong Kong banks and market infrastructures, but no HKMA action is involved in this story.

Story details

Where
European Union
Category
tokenization

Sources