Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai has called for a bal­anced and co­or­di­nat­ed glob­al ap­proach to reg­u­lat­ing cryp­to as­sets, warn­ing that while dig­i­tal as­sets present op­por­tu­ni­ties for greater fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion, they al­so pose risks to fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly for small open economies like T&T.

Speak­ing at the 2026 World Bank Group and In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund An­nu­al Meet­ings in Bangkok, Thai­land, Howai said cryp­to as­sets have rapid­ly moved from the fringes of fi­nance in­to the main­stream, mak­ing ef­fec­tive reg­u­la­tion an ur­gent pri­or­i­ty for pol­i­cy­mak­ers world­wide.

His re­marks were de­liv­ered dur­ing a dis­cus­sion on “Cryp­to As­sets and the Glob­al Reg­u­la­to­ry Agen­da: Bal­anc­ing In­clu­sion, In­tegri­ty and Sta­bil­i­ty.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor, the de­bate is no longer about whether cryp­to as­sets mat­ter, but how gov­ern­ments and reg­u­la­tors can fos­ter in­no­va­tion while en­sur­ing con­sumer pro­tec­tion, fi­nan­cial in­tegri­ty and fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty.

“Cryp­to as­sets are no longer knock­ing on the door of the glob­al fi­nan­cial sys­tem; they are al­ready in­side the build­ing,” Howai told par­tic­i­pants at the meet­ing.

He ar­gued that pol­i­cy­mak­ers must de­vel­op frame­works that sup­port tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ment with­out un­der­min­ing con­fi­dence in the broad­er fi­nan­cial sys­tem.

The chal­lenge, he said, is cre­at­ing reg­u­la­tions that al­low in­no­va­tion to flour­ish while pro­tect­ing con­sumers and main­tain­ing trust among fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners.

How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that the grow­ing adop­tion of for­eign cur­ren­cy-linked sta­ble­coins could cre­ate chal­lenges for small­er economies. In par­tic­u­lar, he warned that wide­spread use of such as­sets may en­cour­age cur­ren­cy sub­sti­tu­tion, re­duce de­posits with­in do­mes­tic bank­ing sys­tems and weak­en the ef­fec­tive­ness of mon­e­tary pol­i­cy.

These de­vel­op­ments, he sug­gest­ed, could have far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions for coun­tries seek­ing to pre­serve fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty while adapt­ing to a rapid­ly evolv­ing dig­i­tal land­scape.

Em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion, Howai said the glob­al reg­u­la­to­ry agen­da should not be viewed as an ob­sta­cle to in­no­va­tion. Rather, he ar­gued that sound reg­u­la­tion is es­sen­tial for build­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence and en­sur­ing the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of dig­i­tal fi­nan­cial tech­nolo­gies.

“The glob­al reg­u­la­to­ry agen­da is not a brake on in­no­va­tion. It is the con­di­tion un­der which in­no­va­tion earns the trust of the peo­ple who use it, and of the banks and part­ners who de­cide whether our fi­nan­cial sys­tem stays con­nect­ed to the world,” he said.

He urged pol­i­cy­mak­ers to avoid ex­treme po­si­tions, ar­gu­ing that nei­ther out­right bans nor unchecked adop­tion would serve the pub­lic in­ter­est. In­stead, he called for care­ful reg­u­la­tion, ef­fec­tive en­force­ment and greater in­ter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion to man­age the op­por­tu­ni­ties and risks as­so­ci­at­ed with cryp­to as­sets.