FSB chair Bailey warns stablecoin crisis rules untested ahead of G20

Andrew Bailey holds two jobs that now point at the same problem. As chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), he has warned in a letter to G20 finance ministers and central bank governors that cross-border cooperation on stablecoins is “still in its infancy”. As governor of the Bank of England, he has previously warned that international stablecoin rulemaking stalled.

The letter accompanies an FSB note published on 12 October 2026, which states that crisis-management frameworks for global stablecoin arrangements remain largely untested under severe stress or insolvency. The note was timed days before the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors’ meeting on 15 October, where the warning lands on the agenda of the officials Bailey writes to in his FSB capacity.

The chairman’s letter, the governor’s stall

“Global stablecoin arrangements are inherently cross-border, yet national regulations are taking shape at different speeds and cross-border cooperation in this area is still in its infancy,” Bailey wrote in the accompanying letter. The FSB’s own survey numbers underline the point: a 2025 FSB survey found only 11 of 28 jurisdictions had completed stablecoin regulatory frameworks, three years after its 2023 recommendations set out how they should.

What Bailey wants from the G20

The note found significant gaps in regulatory, supervisory and crisis-management frameworks, and the FSB called for better cross-border data sharing between authorities, full adoption of its 2023 recommendations, and more work on planning for stablecoin distress or failure. The stakes are the size of the market itself: stablecoin capitalisation has grown from around $206 billion at the start of 2025 to roughly $300 billion as of mid-2026, with about 99% pegged to the US dollar.

For the Bank of England’s constituency, the unresolved question is how holders recover funds when an issuer fails across multiple jurisdictions, a point the FSB raises without answering. The FSB’s recommendations are not legally binding, though members tend to commit to implementing agreed standards nationally.