Thomas Leach from the University of Pavia participated to the 2020 EBA Policy Research Workshop on new technologies in the banking sector – impacts, risks and opportunities. The workshop sought to explore the future of new technologies in the banking sector and what measures could be taken by policy makers to improve and reap further benefits while ensuring the proper assessment of micro-prudential risks, vulnerabilities and preserving financial stability.

Thomas presented research on the topic of Facebook libra. The work has benefited from funding from the FinTech HO2020 project and is a collaboration with Paolo Giudici (University of Pavia) and Paolo Pagnottoni (Polytechnic University of Milan). The paper analyses the consequences of basket-based tokens versus “stablecoins”.