The United States Federal Reserve will bring together bankers, technologists and academics on 21 October for a one-day Payments Innovation Conference that promises to place stablecoins and other emerging technologies under a policy microscope.

Announcing the event on Wednesday, the central bank said the programme will cover “the convergence of traditional and decentralised finance; emerging stablecoin use cases and business models; the intersection of artificial intelligence and payments; and the tokenisation of financial products and services”. The sessions will be livestreamed via federalreserve.gov, and further logistical details are expected in the coming weeks.

“Innovation has been a constant in payments to meet the changing needs of consumers and businesses,” governor Christopher J. Waller said in the press release, adding that he looks forward to “examining the opportunities and challenges of new technologies” and to “hearing from those helping to shape the future of payments”.

Waller has been one of the board’s more vocal proponents of experimenting with digital assets. Speaking at the Economic Club of Miami last month, he gave cautious support to proposed legislation designed to regulate privately issued tokens, telling the audience that “the ‘GENIUS Act’ is a great start”. In the same address, he argued that the central bank should not “shut everything down because [it is] afraid somebody might lose money”, contending that calculated risk-taking drives economic growth.

Regulatory encouragement has grown more explicit in recent months. In April, the Fed withdrew 2024 guidance that discouraged banks from involvement in crypto activities, and it subsequently lifted a bespoke supervisory programme that had targeted lenders with digital-asset exposure, according to The Block. July’s Federal Open Market Committee minutes also suggested that fiat-pegged tokens could improve payment efficiency and increase demand for safe-haven assets such as US Treasury securities.

Industry observers will view the October gathering as a litmus test of how far the Federal Reserve is willing to move towards integrating blockchain-based instruments into mainstream finance. While the board continues to study a potential central-bank digital currency, the forthcoming conference signals a parallel interest in private-sector solutions that could coexist with or complement traditional rails.

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