TL;DR
- Stablecoins issued by 14 of the 23 authorized issuers in the EU cannot offer custody of their own tokens under the MiCA regulation.
- Only nine companies obtained full authorization covering both EMT issuance and CASP services, leaving the rest with severely limited commercial capabilities.
- Circle and Société Générale-Forge emerge as the biggest beneficiaries of this fragmentation in the competition for institutional capital.
The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA, has produced a consequence that most of the industry did not anticipate: 14 of the approximately 23 authorized issuers of stablecoins under the electronic money token (EMT) framework cannot offer custody services for their own assets on behalf of corporate clients. This was flagged by Patrick Hansen, Circle’s Director of EU Strategy and Policy, who expressed surprise at the passivity of competitors in the face of this restriction.
According to the interim register of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), only nine companies obtained full authorization covering both EMT issuance and crypto-asset service provider (CASP) services. The rest became trapped in a regulatory gap that severely limits the range of services they can offer, in Hansen’s own words.
Most EU stablecoin issuers can't custody their own token on behalf of customers 🇪🇺
What's interesting about the list of MiCA-compliant stablecoin issuers (see attached) is that while by now ~23 issuers are authorized e-money token issuers in the EU, only 9 of those are also… pic.twitter.com/Es0LIbnVtw
— Patrick Hansen (@paddi_hansen) August 13, 2026
Stablecoins in the B2B Segment: the MiCA Trap
The impact does not affect retail users, who can freely transfer their tokens between non-custodial wallets. The restriction hits the corporate segment: without a CASP license, issuers cannot hold tokens in custody or process automated payments for corporate clients. To offer these services, companies must go through the notification procedure under Article 60 of MiCA, a process that can take up to one year in jurisdictions such as France or Luxembourg.
Faced with that delay, several issuers chose to migrate to regulated third-party platforms, inaugurating a period of forced B2B partnerships. The most illustrative case is that of Schuman Financial, issuer of the French stablecoin EURØP, which holds EMT status but lacks CASP authorization. Unable to manage the asset independently, the company uses the European MiCA CASP and EMI licenses of Ripple to offer legal custody and transfers across 30 European countries, having integrated its asset into the XRP Ledger infrastructure.
A Direct Advantage Toward the Top
This imbalance has no immediate resolution in sight. Circle, issuer of USDC and EURC, along with Société Générale-Forge, are positioned as the main beneficiaries of the current fragmentation caused by MiCA. Both companies hold the dual regulatory authorization that the rest of the market will take months or even a year to achieve, guaranteeing them a structural advantage in capturing institutional capital within the European Economic Area.
