PORTUGAL Law and Practice Contributed by: Nuno Lima da Luz and Tomás Gomes da Silva, Cuatrecasas
and imposes authorisation and notification pathways, with different issuer eligibility rules. For EMTs, the BdP states that the issuer must be a credit institution or an electronic money institution and must notify the authority and publish the white paper, which creates a direct institutional bridge to the existing e-mon- ey world without simply treating EMTs as ordinary e-money under PSD2 rules. The bespoke MiCA framework coexists with, rather than replaces, payments regulation. The Electronic Money Directive defines electronic money as stored monetary value represented by a claim on the issuer, issued on receipt of funds for making payment transac- tions and accepted by persons other than the issuer, and it imposes authorisation and prudential require- ments for electronic money institutions. Portugal’s pay- ment services regime transposes PSD2 and defines regulated payment activities, which can still be relevant where a stablecoin model includes payment execution, safeguarding of client funds, or redemption and opera- tional arrangements. The practical implication is that EMT business models must be designed to satisfy both MiCA’s token-specific requirements and the underlying institutional licensing constraints of banks/EMIs. 6.2.3 Backing Assets For ARTs and EMTs, the backing-assets concept is embedded in MiCA and is being operationalised through detailed EU technical standards and guide- lines. EBA materials on MiCA stablecoin categories show RTS and ITS addressing liquidity requirements, highly liquid financial instruments in the reserve of assets, liquidity stress testing, recovery and redemp- tion planning, and supervisory colleges, which collec- tively shape what “backing assets” can be and how they must be managed. This indicates that backing assets are not merely a contractual promise; they are the subject of enforceable prudential-style constraints and supervisory scrutiny. At Portuguese level, the BdP is the competent author- ity for MiCA Titles III and IV supervision, and Portugal’s Law 69/2025 assigns it that role, meaning reserve/ backing questions for ART/EMT issuers will be super- vised domestically within the EU framework. The practical implications include constraints on where reserve assets are held (custody and segregation
expectations), how liquid they must be, and whether issuer remuneration policies could undermine reserve integrity. Even if an issuer’s commercial model con- templates paying “interest,” the backing-asset and redemption obligations are likely to restrict structures that resemble fractional reserve banking or that gener- ate runs under stress, and those issues become espe- cially acute for tokens approaching “significant” scale. 6.2.4 Special Considerations Stablecoins that create systemic or monetary-policy risk concerns are a primary focus of MiCA’s design, and EU institutions have built an ongoing supervi- sory framework around them. EBA materials show dedicated supervisory priorities, recovery planning, redemption planning, and supervisory colleges under MiCA for ART/EMT issuers, which is consistent with a risk-tiered approach. These measures are intended to reduce run risk, ensure orderly redemption in crisis, and create coordination mechanisms across authori- ties where scale and cross-border impact increase. Portugal’s allocation of competent authorities also matters for systemic tokens because it determines which authority leads supervision and which co-ordi- nates with EU bodies. Law 69/2025 designates the BdP as point of contact for co-operation in matters relating to ART/EMT issuers and CASPs, including cooperation with the EBA, reinforcing that stable- coin supervision is designed to be EU-coordinated. Practically, issuers should expect heightened scrutiny around governance, reserve transparency, liquidity stress testing, and redemption capabilities as their tokens scale. They should also expect that product design choices that resemble deposit-taking or create “shadow banking” dynamics will face intense regula- tory sensitivity, including potential enforcement if issu- ance occurs outside the permitted issuer categories. 7. Tokenisation and Real-World Assets 7.1 Treatment Tokenisation of real-world assets (RWAs) in Portugal is regulated primarily by the legal nature of the underly- ing right and by whether the tokenised instrument is already covered by existing financial services regula- tion, with MiCA filling gaps for “non-traditional” cryp-
519 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook