Business
EU, IMF Differ On Greece Debt
Eurozone finance ministers have postponed agreement on Greece’s long-delayed €31.3bn aid payment for yet another week as divisions burst into the open on Monday night between the International Monetary Fund and EU creditors over how fast Athens must reduce its burgeoning debt levels.
According to CNN, Christine Lagarde, the IMF chief, and Jean-Claude Juncker, chair of the eurogroup of finance ministers, publicly sparred over whether Greece must reduce its debt levels to 120 per cent of economic output by 2020, long viewed the target to get Athens back to a sustainable debt level.
An agreement between the IMF and eurozone governments is essential to releasing the bailout tranche since both creditors disburse financial assistance concurrently.
In a rare breach, Mr Juncker told a post-meeting press conference the target would be moved to 2022, prompting Ms Lagarde to insist the IMF was sticking to the original timeline. When Mr Juncker again insisted it would be moved — “I’m not joking,” he said — Ms Lagarde appeared exasperated, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.
“In our view, the appropriate timetable is 120 per cent by 2020,” Ms Lagarde said. “We clearly have different views.” Officials will meet again November 20 in an effort to reach agreement, Mr Juncker said.
Despite the delay, officials insisted Greece would not default on Thursday, when Athens must make a debt payment of about €5bn without the benefit of international aid.
Greece’s ability to raise the money on its own has been cast into doubt after the European Central Bank refused to increase the amount of treasury bills it would accept as collateral from Greek banks seeking low-interest ECB loans. Without the ability to use treasury bills as collateral, Greek banks have little financial incentive to purchase them.
But Olli Rehn, the EU’s top economic official, said even if the ECB did not raise the ceiling of treasury bills it would accept, Greek banks had improved their cash position enough that they were expected to purchase the debt anyway, getting over what Mr Rehn termed a “Greek fiscal cliff”.
The Lagarde-Juncker spat was a public manifestation of a fight that has been simmering behind closed doors for months. The IMF has insisted the overhauled bailout plan include a credible debt reduction proposal, which may force eurozone countries to accept losses on bailout loans.
But European Commission officials believe the IMF is being overly pessimistic, arguing Greece can grow faster economically and should be given more leeway to meet debt targets.
According to senior officials, the IMF believes that without any relief, Greek debt will stand at nearly 150 per cent of gross domestic product by 2020, while the European Commission believes it will be just over 140 per cent. Without agreement on the baseline, officials cannot come up with a debt relief plan, which will involve both eurozone governments and the ECB giving up cash they had originally been owed by Greece.
If the target is moved to 2022, eurozone governments will have an easier time formulating a plan, since it likely will only involve cutting interest rates on bailout loans. Standing firm to 2020 may require write downs on those loans, something Germany and other creditor countries have refused to do.
“We started to discuss a certain number of avenues,” Mr Juncker said. “My personal feeling is that [official write downs] will not be the one that will be privileged.”
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
