Circle now has two supervisors in Europe. From November 12, 2026, the European Banking Authority (EBA) checks the reserve behind USDC, the issuer’s own funds and liquidity, and its recovery and redemption plans. France’s ACPR, Circle’s home supervisor in the EU until now, keeps the rest of the file, governance included.
It’s the first time the EBA has done this for an e-money token. Back on October 14 it classified USDC as a significant e-money token under MiCA, and none of the other 44 tokens notified in the EU got that label. Today’s handover of USDC supervision is the result.
Who checks what
The split is in the EBA’s own release. Where it lists the ACPR’s part, it gives examples, so read the second row as a sample.
| Supervisor | Areas from November 12 |
|---|---|
| EBA | own funds, reserve of assets, liquidity requirements, recovery and redemption plans |
| ACPR | governance, qualifying holdings, fit and proper checks, outsourcing, conflicts of interest, among others |
There’s a third layer. For every significant issuer the EBA sets up and chairs a supervisory college, a forum where the authorities share information and can issue non-binding opinions, as its MiCA supervision page explains. And because the same USDC is also issued in the US, by Circle Internet Financial, LLC, the EBA signed a memorandum of understanding with New York’s Department of Financial Services.
Why USDC, and only USDC
Mostly size. MiCA calls a token significant once it meets at least three of the criteria in Article 43(1), and the EBA reruns that test on every token once a year.
USDC had $70.14 billion in circulation on November 11, according to DefiLlama. That counts tokens from both Circle companies, so it isn’t an EU-only number. Still, nothing else on the EU register comes close: in our count of MiCA-compliant stablecoins on November 10, USDC was 95% of the market value we could match.
Look at EURC for contrast. Same issuer, the same French company, but $511 million in circulation on November 11, and no significant label. The new regime covers USDC alone.
Does anything change for holders?
Not on the surface. The release is about who supervises Circle’s EU company, and it doesn’t touch how USDC is minted, sent or redeemed. Nobody holding the token has to do anything today.
Underneath, the checks get tighter. Significant tokens carry extra rules, “mainly on liquidity and own funds” in the EBA’s words, and the EU authority now reviews them itself from data the issuer reports to it every quarter. The issuer deadline for third-quarter figures fell on November 11, a day before the switch.
None of this is permanent. If USDC shrank enough to fail the test at a yearly review, the label could go, and another token could just as well pick one up.
