As a tennis fan, I watched a rising generation of young stars challenge the old guard at Wimbledon last week. It made me think of another field where upstarts are pushing their way on to centre court: the payments industry. Digital players, ranging from tiny start-ups to Facebook-backed Libra, are seeking to elbow aside large banks and credit card companies.

We at the IMF are watching the growth of so-called stablecoins closely and on Monday we published a paper that identifies their benefits and risks, and highlights some regulatory issues that are likely to emerge.

Stablecoin sponsors offer what they describe as less volatile versions of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. They want to do for payments what the internet has done for information: make transactions secure, cheap and instantaneous. To create the price stability that has eluded most cryptocurrencies to date, many sponsors offer redemptions at face value — essentially a money-back guarantee. However, they lack the government backstops that banks enjoy, so the risk of losses remains. The new companies need to prove they can do what they claim.