Israel

Bit is the only bank-owned wallet in EMEA to hold half of P2P value at scale

Bank Hapoalim's Bit reached ~3.3m active users by end-2024, holding roughly 50% of person-to-person digital payments by value. The competitive backdrop is unusual: a single bank-owned consumer wallet sits ahead of an interoperable banking sector (Leumi's Pay is the second wallet, smaller but interoperable via MASAV), with Apple Pay layered on top of card credentials. The January 2025 receiver-fee threshold of ILS 25,000/year is the first move toward monetising commercial use without disturbing the consumer-grade defaults. The structural question Bit's competitors face is acceptance — Apple Pay covers cards but not Bit-style direct A2A; Leumi's Pay is interoperable but lacks distribution; Mizrahi-Tefahot, Discount and Israel Discount Bank's apps remain at single-digit-percent share. Bit Business, launched late 2024 as the SME-facing variant, is the channel through which Hapoalim attempts to translate consumer-side scale into merchant-payments share.

Israel has one of the few CMA-cleared shekel stablecoin frameworks in the world

The Capital Markets, Insurance and Savings Authority approved Bits of Gold's BILS as the first shekel-pegged stablecoin under a two-year sandbox graduation in March 2024. The Israel Securities Authority August 2024 ruling allowed non-bank TASE members to offer crypto trading and custody. BOI Governor Yaron publicly characterised stablecoins as systemic in December 2025; a broader framework is in consultation.

The CBDC decision is not a pilot — it is a launch recommendation

BOI's preliminary digital-shekel design was published in March 2025; consultation closed May 2025. Project lead Yoav Soffer's team will hand a launch recommendation to the Governor at end-2026, with implementation potentially as early as 2027. The architecture choice is closer to a single-step move from preparation to live issuance than the multi-year pilot path most G10 peers have taken — distinctive enough that it warrants the SCHEMA-v3 'preparation' label rather than 'pilot' or 'research'.

Bits of Gold's BILS pilot graduation in 2024 created the regulatory template; broader CMA framework is now in consultation with BOI's stated view that stablecoins should be treated as systemic if scale rises. Operators with shekel-pegged collateral models that can pass the CMA's reserve attestation, audit and redemption-rights gates have a window through 2026–27 ahead of an EU-style MiCA equivalent.

ZAHAV's ISO 20022 cutover completed November 2025 and the BOI roadmap now extends structured-message richness down to MASAV retail flows. The expansion path beyond P2P into merchant and government billing is the live operating question for PSPs and acquirers; the lift on Bit and Pay routing through MASAV is the natural distribution.

The 2019 BOI banking reform unwound structural ownership ties between the three credit-card companies (Isracard, CAL, Max) and the largest banks. Multi-currency and benefits cards that compete on direct customer relationships rather than affiliated-bank distribution are the live opening; Max has been most aggressive on FX-card and travel-spend distribution.