IMF official to lead BIS Innovation Hub on CBDCs, tokenization

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has appointed Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli, an assistant director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to lead the BIS Innovation Hub effective March 2026. He will oversee work on central bank digital currencies (CBDC), tokenized assets and new market infrastructure across the Hub’s global centers.

Mancini-Griffoli serves in the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department, where he leads work on payments and currencies. In outlining the role, the BIS described the mandate as to “lead work to explore technological solutions within the central bank community on innovation.”

At the IMF, he has been active in policy discussions on digital money. His work has stressed that digital forms of money should be anchored in public money and strong regulation. In a September essay, he wrote that stablecoins carry structural risks if they are not backed by safe assets and robust governance, warning that weak arrangements can expose users to “runs, liquidity mismatches and loss of value.”

He has promoted a “synthetic” CBDC model in which private institutions issue digital money fully backed by central bank reserves, combining public backing with private distribution and user-facing services. He has also supported tokenized financial instruments when they operate within frameworks that ensure settlement finality and system stability.

The BIS Innovation Hub is running several high-profile experiments. These include mBridge, a multi-jurisdictional CBDC platform for cross-border payments; Agora, a tokenized deposit infrastructure; and Project Nexus, which seeks to link real-time payment systems and interoperable CBDC rails.

The Hub focuses on practical prototypes and experiments that can inform policy and technical standards among central banks. Mancini-Griffoli’s recent work has involved coordination with central banks and regulators on design choices and risk management for CBDCs, stablecoins and tokenized deposits.

Before the appointment takes effect in 2026, the Innovation Hub plans to continue pilots and proofs of concept across its centers, including efforts to improve cross-border payment efficiency, reduce settlement risk and test tokenized money that connects with existing market infrastructure.