The Bank of England published its policy statement on regulating systemic stablecoins on June 22, 2026, and it did not do what the industry expected. Instead of capping how much any individual or business could hold in a single stablecoin, the Bank scrapped that idea and put a ceiling on the coin itself: a temporary issuance guardrail of £40 billion per systemic stablecoin, with issuers required to notify the Bank if they breach it or expect to. The same week, Dutch neobank bunq opened its banking license to outside companies across the EU, and India's digital lenders hit a hard deadline on their own compliance obligations. Three different regulators and one bank, all moving from stating principles to writing specific numbers and dates into the rulebook.
The UK drops a holding cap for an issuance cap
In November 2025, the Bank of England had proposed limiting how much individuals and businesses could hold in a single systemic stablecoin, an approach floated at £20,000 for individuals and £10 million for businesses. That proposal is gone. The June 22 policy statement replaces it with a £40 billion issuance guardrail applied per coin, alongside a draft Code of Practice now out for consultation until September 22, 2026 (Global Regulation Tomorrow, 2026; Bank of England, 2026).
The shift matters because a per-coin issuance limit and a per-holder limit produce different market outcomes. A holding cap restricts how concentrated any one user's exposure can get, no matter how big the coin's total supply. An issuance cap restricts total supply directly, which affects liquidity and adoption at scale but leaves individual holders unrestricted. The Bank's own reasoning, per its policy statement, was that a holding cap was harder and more costly for issuers to implement and would have limited unrestricted use by ordinary households and businesses.
The Bank has not finalized rules yet. It expects to close the consultation in September and finalize the framework by the end of 2026, with regulated sterling stablecoins able to operate from 2027 (Bloomberg, 2026). Nothing here is live yet. It is a marker of direction, not a rule in force.
bunq turns its own banking license into a product
On June 23, bunq said its "bunq-as-a-Service" banking-as-a-service platform, first piloted in April 2026 with Dutch Bitcoin platform Blockrise as its anchor partner, is now open to other businesses across the EU (bunq Newsroom, 2026; Crowdfund Insider, 2026).
Through an open API, partner companies can issue virtual cards, process instant SEPA payments, manage client funds, and run fiat on and off ramps, without applying for their own banking license. Deposits processed through the platform carry protection up to €100,000 under bunq's own European banking license and the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme, meaning the regulatory liability sits with bunq, not the partner. In its Blockrise pilot, bunq said 40% of eligible users opened their own personal bunq account with a dedicated IBAN within the first month of integration, a figure bunq itself disclosed and that trade press has repeated without independent verification (Embedded Finance Review, 2026).
This is the embedded finance model that has been discussed for years finally shipping at a European neobank with its own charter, rather than through a US-style sponsor bank arrangement. The commercial question is whether bunq can convert pilot partners like Blockrise into a broader roster before larger providers with more capital move into the same space.
India's digital lenders run out of runway
In India, the Reserve Bank of India's Digital Lending Directions, 2025 (RBI/2025-26/36) took effect on May 8, 2025, but regulated entities, lending service providers and their digital lending apps have had over a year to build the required systems. That runway ends June 30, 2026, when the RBI has said platforms must show operational compliance, not documented policy: live Key Fact Statement disclosures before loan sanction, direct disbursal and repayment between the borrower's own bank account and the regulated entity, First Loss Default Guarantee arrangements capped at the prescribed limit, and a functioning grievance redressal process with a named Nodal Officer, a 30-day resolution window, and escalation to the RBI's own complaint channels if that window is missed (Reserve Bank of India, 2025; Lawrbit, 2026).
The Directions also restrict what lenders can do with borrower data collected for underwriting: it cannot be reused to market other financial products without a fresh, separate consent. For a digital lending sector that has grown by bundling credit decisions with aggressive cross-sell, that is a real constraint on the business model, not just a paperwork exercise.
What to watch
The Bank of England's Code of Practice consultation closes September 22, 2026, and its final stablecoin rules are due by year end, with live sterling stablecoins possible from 2027. In India, June 30 is the test: whether the RBI treats it as a hard enforcement date or a soft one will show up in whichever digital lending apps get named in an enforcement action, or don't. bunq's next disclosure to watch is whether any BaaS partner beyond Blockrise goes live, since one anchor partner is a pilot, not yet a platform.
Sources: Global Regulation Tomorrow · Bank of England · Bloomberg · bunq Newsroom · Crowdfund Insider · Embedded Finance Review · Reserve Bank of India · Lawrbit