14th ILF Conference on the Future of the Financial Sector
Stablecoins, CBDCs, Tokenization - The New Frontiers of Money?
27 January 2026
Campus Westend, Casino Building
and Online
The Institute for Law and Finance’s 14th Conference on the Future of the Financial Sector will be held on a hybrid basis on the Westend Campus of Goethe University in Frankfurt, on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, co-chaired by Andreas Dombret and Patrick Kenadjian. This is the fourteenth in a series of annual conferences which has established itself for its thought leadership in the area.
The topic will be Stablecoins, CBDCs, Tokenization – The New Frontiers of Money? With the passage of the GENIUS Act in the United States, the issue of what the expected rapid spread of dollar denominated stablecoins means for the international payments system, financial stability, monetary sovereignty and the future of money has become more acute, especially in Europe where the payments landscape is already dominated by US providers of payment rails. The official position of the European public sector has been to continue to support the European Central Bank’s digital Euro project as an alternative. The Bank for International Settlements, which has been a significant thought leader in the area, is proposing an ambitious broader tokenization alternative which would allow a wide variety of assets and means of payment to interact on a unified ledger.
The conference will analyze the pros and cons of stablecoins, from the point of view of users and of monetary and fiscal policy and debate how Europe should react to them. It will explore whether central bank digital currencies, especially the retail digital Euro, are a realistic and timely alternative, in the form heretofore proposed or whether Europe may need to rethink its approach to them. Finally, the conference will examine whether a broader approach involving tokenization and a unified ledger would provide a superior solution which could be implemented in a realistic time frame.
Program
08:45 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
Hendrik Haag, Director, Institute for Law and Finance
Patrick Kenadjian, Senior Counsel, Davis Polk&Wardwell
09:00 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Stablecoins and the GENIUS Act: How Should Other Countries Respond?
Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Chair and Distinguished Professor of Economics and Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
09:30 PANEL 1: The Pros and Cons of Stablecoins
Impulse statement: Marion Laboure, Senior Economist, Deutsche Bank
Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, Chairman, Société Générale
Alexander Hoeptner, CEO, AllUnity
Fritzi Köhler-Geib, Member of the Executive Board, Deutsche Bundesbank
Jean-Pierre Landau, Professor, Sciences Po
Wessel van Rensburg, Founder, RAAK.work
Moderator:
Andreas Dombret, Global Senior Advisor, Oliver Wyman
11:00 B R E A K
11:30 PANEL 2: Are CBDCs the Answer?
Impulse statement: Lucrezia Reichlin, Professor, London Business School
José Antonio Alvarez, Non-executive director, Banco Santander
Volker Bruehl, Managing Director, Center for Financial Studies, Frankfurt University
Wim Mijs, CEO, European Banking Federation (remote)
Thomas Vlassopoulos, Director of General Markets and Infrastructure, ECB
Dominik Weh, Partner, Oliver Wyman
Moderator:
Stephen Martin, Senior Manager, Amazon Web Services
13:00 BREAK/Lunch
13:45 CONVERSATION: Financial Innovation: Harnessing Benefits while Mitigating Risks
Klaas Knot, former President, De Nederlandsche Bank and Chair, Financial Stability Board
Moderator:
Andreas Dombret, Global Senior Advisor, Oliver Wyman
14:00 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Money as a coordination device: some historical lessons
Hyun Song Shin, Economic Advisor and Head of the Monetary and Economic Department, Bank for International Settlements (remote)
14:45 PANEL 3: Are Tokenization and Unified Ledgers the real Solution?
Impulse statement: Gokce Ozcan, Partner, Oliver Wyman (remote)
Tobias Adrian, Financial Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department, International Monetary Fund (remote)
Stephen Cecchetti, Rosen Family Chair in International Finance, Brandeis International Business School
Julio Faura, co-founder and Chair, Adhara
Gaston Gélos,Deputy Head of the Monetary and Economic Department, Bank for International Settlements
Ruth Wandhöfer, Director of European Markets, Blackwired
Moderator:
Patrick Kenadjian, Senior Counsel, Davis Polk&Wardwell
16:15 CONCLUSION
René Fischer, Partner and Head of Financial Services Germany and Austria, Oliver Wyman
16:30 END OF CONFERENCE
Knowledge Partner
Supported by
Date
Tuesday, 27 January 2026
Time
09:00-17:00 CET
Place
Goethe-University
Campus Westend
Casino Building
Renate-von-Metzler-Saal (1st Floor)
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 2
D-60323 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
and Online via LiveStream
Contact for Informations
Ingo Claus Peter
Tel.: +49 69 798 33779
EMail: events@ilf.uni-frankfurt.de
