- Twenty-one financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi and BBVA, plan to form a company that issues a dollar-backed stablecoin, aiming for a first-half-2027 launch.
- The group grew from ten G-SIB banks last October to 21 institutions across five regions, and intends to comply with the GENIUS Act and MiCA.
- It signals that large banks want a direct stake in stablecoin payments instead of ceding the market to non-bank issuers.
Twenty-one financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citi, have announced that they will form a shared company to issue a dollar-backed stablecoin, with a market launch targeted for the first half of 2027.
The venture will start with a single US-dollar stablecoin, according to a press release from PR Newswire and published by BBVA, one of the participants. The group of financial institutions wants to issue coins in additional G7 currencies over time and has named a stablecoin euro version as its next priority after the dollar stablecoin.
The new company still remains unnamed and is expected to be formed officially in the second half of 2026. The stablecoin is meant for wholesale, institutional and retail users, with cross-border payments and digital-asset trade settlement seen as early use cases.
The launch of a bank-backed stablecoin is a new development, as it places the coin into a market so far dominated by non-bank issuers.
Ten banks in October, Twenty-one now
This is an expansion of an effort that went public last October, when ten global systemically important banks (G-SIBs, the lenders regulators treat as too big to fail) said they were studying a 1:1 reserve-backed token that would live on public blockchains. Eight of those original ten are still in: Banco Santander, Bank of America, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, MUFG Bank, TD Bank and UBS.
Thirteen new names have now joined for the second phase of planning, with the roster now spanning five different regions. North America brings Capital One, Fidelity Investments, PNC Financial Services, Scotiabank, Wells Fargo and WisdomTree in addition to the earlier members. Europe adds BBVA, Commerzbank, Crédit Agricole, Lloyds Banking Group and Rabobank. East Asia is represented by MUFG Bank, Middle East by Abu Dhabi’s Sirius International Holding, and Standard Bank joins from Africa.
The rest of the group is made up of two US asset managers and the Abu Dhabi conglomerate subsidiary.
Why two rival stablecoin issuers joined in
The most interesting additions to this group of banks are Fidelity Investments and WisdomTree, with both banks already running their own stablecoins. Fidelity launched FIDD in January via a federally chartered national trust bank, while WisdomTree issues USDW under a New York trust charter.
Both banks’ decisions to back a shared token might point to a general conclusion within the industry that no single firm’s token or stablecoin is likely to acquire the reach and network needed to compete with the current non-bank issuers.
The press release from the group claims the initiative wants to comply with both the US GENIUS Act and the EU’s MiCA guidelines, as applicable, implying the stablecoin is being designed with two of the world’s stricter stablecoin regimes in mind.
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Opeyemi specializes in creating and refining high-quality content focused on cryptocurrency, global financial markets and the economy. He graduated from the University of Ibadan with an MBBS degree. He has worked as Editor-in-Chief for his College’s editorial publication and previously at CFA. For over six years, he has helped safeguard uniqueness as news editor at Cryptopolitan.