New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority (FMA) is advancing regulation for payment stablecoins tethered to the New Zealand dollar after the regulator opened a consultation on November 9. The
New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority (FMA) is advancing regulation for payment stablecoins tethered to the New Zealand dollar after the regulator opened a consultation on November 9.
The consultation period opens amid a struggling domestic stablecoin sector in a country where the issuer of the flagship NZD coin, NZDD, has been put up for sale after the token struggled to gain popularity.
According to New Zealand’s FMA consultation on a class designation for stablecoins tied to the New Zealand dollar (NZD), which opened on November 9, payment coins will not be classified as financial products under the Financial Markets Conduct Act.
The consultation is intended to draw comments as the regulator attempts to clarify the distinction between payment coins and investment tokens based on a set of conditions that include bank-held New Zealand dollars backing and face value redemption.
The FMA is running a temperature check to see whether stablecoin products can get a clearer path to market in the interim without undermining confidence in New Zealand’s financial system, according to FMA General Counsel Liam Mason.
New Zealand still does not have a dedicated crypto or stablecoin licensing law to sit underneath the designation the FMA is currently working on. Instead, the regulator is carving out an exemption from the country’s securities law.
The agency said longer-term rules for digital assets are still being written.
Earlier this year, the FMA ruled that the NZDD stablecoin, issued by Easy Crypto subsidiary ECDD Holdings Limited, is not a financial product. NZDD is the only NZD stablecoin to have earned that designation from the regulator. The agency explained that decision by saying the token met its specified conditions:
Despite the regulatory green light, NZDD adoption never tracked domestic adoption expectations. In fact, total supply has reportedly shrunk nearly 50% since August.
Easy Crypto’s Australian parent, Swyftx, shut the New Zealand exchange on March 31, and it is still looking for a buyer for the stablecoin business it put up for sale since.
FMA Chief Executive Samantha Barass conceded that New Zealand’s regulatory approach has led to participants voicing out “frustration” over “uncertainty, cost, and the steep transition to full licensing.”
ECDD’s NZDD was the lone participant of the 24 firms that applied to the FMA’s December 2024 fintech pilot to actually reach market. It was one of the six admitted to the sandbox.
Australia’s securities regulator ASIC has more chapters in its book on stablecoin regulation. The regulator treats non-yield-bearing stablecoin as a non-cash payment facility, which generally requires issuers to obtain an Australian financial services license.
Canberra has also passed digital asset reforms and proposed the tokenized stored value facility as a dedicated category to govern payment stablecoins directly.
Zoom out, and New Zealand still comes in behind several neighbors in the region. Hong Kong granted its first two stablecoin issuer licenses on April 10, 2026, and Singapore published draft legislation on September 1 to write its framework into the Payment Services Act.
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