NEWARK — Sen. Spiros Mantzavinos (D-Newport) has introduced a package of bills to modernize banking in Delaware, aiming to vault the state back to the top of the competitive global market.

In 1981, Delaware passed major sweeping banking reforms through the Financial Center Development Act, encouraging major out-of-state banks to establish subsidiaries in the state and removed interest rate caps.

Now, Mantzavinos has unveiled a three-bill package at the University of Delaware’s FinTech Innovation Hub which he said would be the most meaningful updates to the state’s banking laws since, including a bill which would allow for the regulation of smaller stablecoin issuers.

Stablecoin is a cryptocurrency which is used to transfer funds between different tokens while being tied to another asset like the U.S. dollar. Transfers of this tender happen almost instantly, bypassing borders and bank regulations and charging fees, making it even more attractive in a world where mobile banking and payment is becoming more popular.

But stablecoin is not without critics, as it’s a relatively new currency and regulations are still being set, with the President Donald Trump signing federal laws last year to set up a framework. Banking and financial tech companies are now navigating this new world and how fees would work. For example, Stripe announced in December that its stablecoin payment processing charges businesses 1.5% for the transaction.

Some financial experts have been advising caution around stablecoin as customers are essentially trusting the issuers and companies who are selling it that they have the money in reserves.

But Mantzavinos told the Delaware Business Times in an exclusive interview last week that he sees the bill as a way to establish the state as a trailblazer in a new space, much like how Gov. Pete du Pont and the legislature acted quickly on interest rate caps, which caused a major boom in credit card and banking jobs in Wilmington in the decade which followed.

“We need to be competitive and the world is evolving. We need a diverse economy for people to have jobs and we’re seeing growth in biosciences and we have opportunities in financial services,” Mantzavinos told the Delaware Business Times in an exclusive interview. “The world’s changing and so is the financial services sector and we need to keep up.”

The big part of his newest bill package is a proposed licensing framework for payment of stablecoin issuers and digital asset service providers.

In 2025, new federal laws were enacted to create framework requiring stablecoin issuers to back their assets with the U.S. Treasuries and U.S. dollars at a one-to-one ratio. Issuers must also make monthly public disclosures of their reserve composition.

Stablecoin issuers with less than $10 billion in outstanding assets may operate under state regulations, while those issuing $10 billion or more fall under federal supervision.