A group of 21 major financial institutions plans to establish a new company to develop and issue stablecoins, bringing some of the world’s largest banks and investment firms into a shared digital money project.
The consortium includes Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Santander, MUFG and Fidelity Investments. The group plans to launch a U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin in the first half of 2027, subject to the formation of the new company and other conditions.
The project expands an initiative announced last October, when an initial group of 10 banks said they were studying a 1:1 reserve-backed form of digital money that could operate on public blockchains. The consortium has since more than doubled in size and now includes institutions from North America, Europe, East Asia, the Middle East and Africa. That expansion gives the project a different scale from individual bank stablecoin experiments. Rather than creating another token tied to one institution or market, the group is attempting to build shared infrastructure that could be used across multiple banking networks and jurisdictions.
The first token will be denominated in U.S. dollars, but the consortium ultimately plans to issue stablecoins linked to other G7 currencies. A euro-denominated token has been identified as the next priority after the dollar launch.
The group said the stablecoins will target wholesale, institutional and retail markets. Potential uses include cross-border payments and digital asset settlement, two areas where blockchain-based money could reduce the need for several intermediaries and shorten settlement times.
The project is also designed to comply with the U.S. GENIUS Act and the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation where applicable. That regulatory focus could become one of its main advantages as banks, brokers, custodians and asset managers consider how stablecoins can be incorporated into existing financial infrastructure.
Compliance with both regimes would also give the consortium a potential route into two of the world’s largest regulated financial markets without relying on an offshore stablecoin structure.
