A group of 21 banks and asset managers, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citi, will set up a company in the second half of 2026 to issue a US dollar stablecoin targeted for the first half of 2027. The consortium confirmed the commitment on September 1, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.
The venture has no name yet. The group has also not chosen a blockchain network, a token name or a reserve custodian. What it has settled on is scope: a dollar-pegged token first, with stablecoins tied to other G7 currencies to follow, and a euro version named as the near-term priority.
The project started small. In October 2025, ten banks said they were studying a 1:1 reserve-backed form of digital money focused on G7 currencies and stable payment assets. That founding group included Banco Santander, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, MUFG Bank, TD Bank Group and UBS. Fourteen months later, the study group has doubled and moved from research into the formation of an actual company, a shift from paper to legal entity that took most prior bank consortia considerably longer.
Who joined and when
The eleven new members bring both American and European weight. Fidelity Investments, Wells Fargo, PNC Financial Services and Scotiabank joined from North America. Commerzbank, Credit Agricole, Cooveratieve Rabobank, Lloyds Banking Group, BBVA and Standard Bank came in from Europe and Africa. WisdomTree, an asset manager rather than a bank, rounds out the list, alongside Abu Dhabi-based Sirius International Holding.
The mix matters because it covers the three things the consortium says a stablecoin needs: compliance systems, distribution and balance-sheet strength. The group’s statement promised bank-grade compliance, strong governance, distribution and institutional risk management, a combination that would put regulated incumbents more directly into a market now led by Tether and Circle.
What the token is meant to do
The banks describe three target segments: wholesale, institutional and retail. Proposed uses include cross-border payments and settlement of digital assets. The Wall Street Journal reported that the coming product will focus on commercial clients, though use cases could vary by region and extend into retail markets.
On regulation, the group said it intends the token to be GENIUS Act and MiCA compliant, as applicable. The GENIUS Act set the US framework for payment stablecoins, and MiCA governs the sector in the European Union. Neither the blockchain network nor the reserve custodian has been decided, and the group said only that it would keep appropriate parties updated as the initiative progresses.
A crowded field, with overlap
The 21-bank group is not the only bank consortium in the race. A separate consortium of 37 financial institutions formed a company called Qivalis, which plans to launch a euro-pegged stablecoin later in 2026. Qivalis uses Fireblocks as its core infrastructure partner and onboarded 25 additional banks in May, according to a Reuters report. Spain’s BBVA sits in both groups, which suggests banks are hedging across currency zones rather than picking one.
Banks that went alone have struggled to find users. France’s Societe Generale, which belongs to neither consortium, became the first major bank to issue a dollar-backed stablecoin through its digital asset subsidiary in 2025. Just $12.5 million of that token is in circulation, according to the bank’s own site, against a market where Tether’s USDT alone holds more than $180 billion. Distribution, not technology, is the hard part, and Societe Generale’s token had neither a retail app network nor a corporate treasury base to plug into.
| Project | Members | Currency | Launch target | Infrastructure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21-bank consortium | 21 institutions | USD first, then G7 | H1 2027 | Undisclosed |
| Qivalis | 37 institutions | EUR | Later 2026 | Fireblocks |
Why the banks are moving now
Stablecoins started as trading plumbing, but they have become a payments business with real revenue. Issuers earn yield on reserve assets, mostly short-dated US Treasuries, while paying token holders nothing. That economics explains why both Wall Street and the crypto industry spent 2026 lobbying over the details of the GENIUS Act, and why bank charters for crypto custody and issuance have moved to the front of regulatory queues. Revolut, a fintech rather than a bank, won conditional OCC approval last week for a US national bank charter with stablecoin and crypto custody plans of its own.
Interest in the model picked up after crypto prices rebounded in 2024 and the US administration backed the sector. The timing of the banks’ announcement, days before a Federal Reserve rate decision and a Senate crypto market structure revote, underlines how much of the industry’s agenda now runs through Washington. A Senate procedural vote on the CLARITY Act failed 49-50 on Monday, and Senator Tillis has already filed a motion to reconsider, keeping the market structure question alive alongside the stablecoin work.
The consortium also faces a competitive question that compliance alone cannot answer: why would a corporate treasurer hold a bank token paying no yield when Tether and Circle offer deeper liquidity, or when tokenized money market funds pay actual interest? The banks’ answer, so far, is trust and distribution. That was also Societe Generale’s answer, and it produced $12.5 million in circulation.
Whether the project reaches its 2027 target is an open question. The group has disclosed no launch economics, no reserve structure and no pricing. The last time a bank consortium of this size promised a shared digital currency product, the interval between announcement and launch stretched into years. This one has at least set a date, and it has 21 institutions willing to put their names on it.