Finance
Central bank body BIS appoints new head of digital currency hub
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on November 25, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Global Banking and Finance Review
Company
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on November 25, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
The BIS has appointed Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli to lead its Innovation Hub, focusing on digital currencies and fostering international collaboration.
By Marc Jones
LONDON (Reuters) -The Bank for International Settlements, the umbrella body for central banks, on Tuesday named a new head of its Innovation Hub that oversees its influential work on digital currencies, artificial intelligence and other up-and-coming technologies.
Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli, assistant director for payments, currencies and infrastructure at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will join the Switzerland-based BIS at the start of March, BIS said in a statement.
Often dubbed the central bankers' central bank, the BIS has been looking to fill the role since former Swedish central banker Cecilia Skingsley left in May, two years before her term was due to end.
The BIS innovation unit was set up in 2019 to identify and develop new technologies and rapidly expanded to seven financial centres from London to Hong Kong, though reports this year said it was set to be pared back.
Central bank digital currencies in particular have become a geopolitical hot topic and late last year the BIS suddenly quit a flagship project it had been collaborating on with China and a number of other Asian central banks.
It has also issued increasingly stark warnings about stablecoins - a type of cryptocurrency usually pegged 1:1 to the dollar - and urged countries to move rapidly towards the tokenisation of their currencies.
Mancini-Griffoli will lead its efforts to foster international collaboration among central banks on innovative financial technology, BIS said.
(Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Richard Chang)
A central bank is a financial institution that manages a country's currency, money supply, and interest rates. It oversees the banking system and implements monetary policy to ensure economic stability.
Digital currencies are forms of money that exist only in electronic form. They can be used for online transactions and include cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
The BIS serves as a bank for central banks, promoting monetary and financial stability. It facilitates international cooperation among central banks and provides banking services to them.
Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value by pegging them to a reserve of assets, such as fiat currencies or commodities, reducing volatility.
The Innovation Hub is a unit within the BIS that focuses on fostering international collaboration among central banks on innovative financial technologies, including digital currencies and artificial intelligence.
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