Plain explanations of the mechanics.

A legal category in EU law. Money issued in exchange for funds received, stored electronically, and accepted as payment by someone other than the issuer. It has been regulated in Europe since long before crypto existed — an e‑money token is that same instrument, issued on a blockchain.

A bank takes your deposit and lends most of it out; the money is on the bank's balance sheet and a deposit‑guarantee scheme covers you up to a limit if the bank fails. An e‑money issuer cannot lend your money out. It must safeguard the full amount separately, so the funds are not available to its creditors. There is no deposit guarantee, because there is not supposed to be any lending risk to guarantee against.

Most stablecoins are issued outside the EU with no authorisation and no enforceable redemption right — you rely on the issuer's word and its attestations. An e‑money token is issued by a supervised institution and carries a legal right of redemption at par against that issuer.

MiCA prohibits it outright. An instrument that pays a return starts to look like a deposit or an investment, and would need a different licence and different protections. Any offer of yield on an e‑money token is either not really an e‑money token or not compliant.

You can exchange the token back for the same face amount in ordinary money, at any time, on demand, at no fee. Not "usually", not "subject to liquidity" — it is an obligation the issuer owes you.

An e‑money token references a single official currency and is redeemable at par. An asset‑referenced token references something else — a basket, a commodity, gold — whose price moves. ARTs have real protections but redemption at par is not among them, because there is no fixed par to redeem at.