Marketing a Stablecoin Once Yield is Off the Table

On 1 September 2026 the Monetary Authority of Singapore opened a consultation on changes to the Payment Services Act that would bar stablecoin issuers from paying interest or other benefits tied to customers' holdings, as CoinDesk reported the same day. The proposal would also require reserves equal to at least 100% of the tokens in circulation, held apart from the issuer's own funds. MAS' stated reasoning is that stablecoins are meant for payments rather than for investment or earning a return. The consultation closes on 16 October 2026 and no implementation date has been announced. For teams writing website copy, app listings, and partner presentations, the proposal removes the one number that often made the strongest case.

What the Proposal Changes for the Message

The proposal targets issuers, and the first people who have to act on it work in communications. A headline rate is the easiest claim to make in consumer finance, one figure a customer can compare in seconds. Once that rate is gone, every page, script and deck built around it needs a new opening line, including the ones marketing does not always own, such as onboarding screens, support scripts, sales conversations, and the material partners use to describe the product.

The wording is also broader than interest alone. CoinDesk describes the ban as covering interest or other benefits tied to customers' stablecoin holdings, which appears wide enough to reach any reward that grows with a balance, whatever it is called. A campaign that swaps a rate for points, cashback, or tiered perks linked to how much a customer holds would be rebuilding the same incentive under a new name. How the final text defines those terms is the part a marketing lead should read most closely once it is published.

Why the Label Becomes the Headline

Once yield is banned, a different asset moves to the front of the page: the label itself. MAS' framework reserves the "MAS-regulated stablecoin" label for issuers that meet all of its requirements, letting users tell those tokens apart from others using the same word, while tokens outside the framework would be treated as digital payment tokens. A label the regulator stands behind carries more weight than anything a brand can say about itself.

A label only persuades a reader who understands it, though. Most customers will not know what separates a regulated stablecoin from any other token with a similar name, so the communications task is to translate the requirement into consequences a customer can feel. The reserves are held in full and kept apart from the company's own money. Redemption follows a stated timeline, and under the framework MAS finalised in 2023, regulated issuers must honour a redemption request within five business days, as CoinDesk reported at the time.

What to Say Instead of a Rate

Without a rate to lead with, stablecoin marketing has to answer three questions a careful customer already has in mind: what the token is for, what backs it, and how quickly they can get their money back.

The first answer should show a real use a customer can picture. The proposal treats a stablecoin as a way to pay, and the clearest message shows the token doing that job, such as paying a supplier in another country or settling an online purchase. Copy that invites people to hold the token and watch a balance grow belongs to the model the proposal is designed to close.

The second answer is evidence for the reserves. Reserve backing tends to reassure customers most when they can check it for themselves, which means publishing the figures where people will look and updating them on a schedule the company can keep. A single figure released at launch and never updated does little to reassure a sceptical reader.

The third answer is redemption, and it gives marketing a number to use in place of the rate: how long it takes to get money back. This is likely the first promise a customer tests, and an answer that changes between the website, the app, and the support team weakens it quickly.

Where Compliance Review Has to Sit

A rule that removes the lead benefit also retires a whole vocabulary. Words such as earn, grow, passive income, savings, and returns suggest a product held for gain, and they tend to survive in places nobody revisits: an old landing page, a referral email, a partner's comparison table, a translated app description. Finding them is an audit task, and it costs far less before the final rules take effect than after.

The review also has to reach people outside the marketing team. Exchanges, affiliates, and payment partners describe products in their own words, and a partner advertising a reward on balances can undo careful messaging on the issuer's own site. Whether the final rules extend the ban to intermediaries is a point to confirm in the published text, and partner briefings should wait for that answer rather than assume one.

Tokens outside the framework are treated as digital payment tokens instead, and that carries a real consequence for marketing. MAS already restricts how digital payment token providers can promote their services to the public, a rule this blog covered in the piece on marketing a fintech you are not allowed to advertise. A business offering an unregulated token would likely fall under those same promotion limits.

What to Prepare Before 16 October

Consultation drafts change before they become law, so public communications should say no more than the proposal itself says. What a team can reasonably do now is the groundwork behind that public message. Start by mapping every surface where a rate or a balance-linked reward currently appears, including the ones a partner controls rather than the company itself, and draft the replacement message around use, reserves and redemption, then test whether it still persuades without a number in it. Agree with compliance early on who has final sign-off over wording that reaches a partner's own materials, since that is usually where a rewritten message first breaks down. Handled this way, the final rules land on a team that is simply updating a message it has already written and agreed, rather than one trying to write, clear and launch new copy in whatever time is left before a deadline.

What this Teaches Any Regulated Marketer

The pattern reaches well beyond stablecoins. When a regulator removes the benefit a category has always led with, positioning has to move from what the customer gets back to how reliably the product does its job. Brands tend to manage that shift best when their claims were already specific and verifiable before the rule arrived, since they have far less to unwind.

FAQs

Does the MAS proposal ban marketing stablecoins? No. As CoinDesk reported, the proposal bars issuers from paying interest or other benefits tied to customers' holdings and requires full, segregated reserves. A regulated stablecoin can still be marketed. What loses its basis is any message built on earning a return from holding one.

Is the yield ban final? Not yet. MAS opened the consultation on 1 September 2026 and it closes on 16 October 2026, with no implementation date announced. Public messaging should describe the proposal as a proposal until the final text is published.

What should replace yield in stablecoin messaging? The use case, the reserve evidence, and the redemption terms. Those answer what a careful customer wants to know, and each can be checked against what the product does in practice.

Can rewards or cashback stand in for interest? Treat that as unlikely until the final text says otherwise. The proposal as reported covers interest and other benefits tied to holdings, which appears to reach rewards that scale with a balance. Confirm the definition with compliance before any campaign depends on one.

This is a communications view of a draft regulation. It is not legal or investment advice.

Rethinking how a regulated product explains itself once its headline benefit is gone? Reach out at hello@marcomfin.tech.