BNP Paribas Joins European Stablecoin Consortium Qivalis

Semaine 49

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On Tuesday, the euro stablecoin consortium held its first press conference, unveiling its name, Qivalis, and introducing its management team. The group, originally formed by nine banks including ING, UniCredit and DekaBank, also announced a major addition: BNP Paribas, Europe’s largest bank, will become its tenth member.

Why it matters

BNP’s entry comes as a surprise. According to information shared with Blockstories, earlier talks did not lead to participation, partly because the consortium insisted on equal footing for all members. Its decision to join now strengthens the consortium’s ambition to establish a “common European stablecoin standard,” said Floris Lugt, Qivalis’ newly appointed CFO.

Lugt joins from ING, where he led the wholesale banking digital assets team. He will work alongside CEO Jan-Oliver Sell, formerly at Binance and Coinbase Germany. Sir Howard Davies, former Chair of NatWest and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, will serve as chair of the supervisory board.

What comes next

While the consortium continues its e-money license process with the Dutch central bank, its immediate priorities include further development of the mint-and-burn platform, which has been in production since the summer, the execution of proof-of-concepts and live pilots with partners.

“We want to begin testing both the use of our stablecoin in crypto and DeFi markets, and its potential for payment use cases, bringing corporates and banks on board to enable programmable flows and onchain settlement,” Lugt told Blockstories.

These pilots will also help member banks develop their own distribution capabilities, which Lugt identifies as one of the project’s early constraints.

“It’s the responsibility of the banks and other partners to develop their own distribution strategies, but in the early years there will be close collaboration with the consortium to ensure sufficient liquidity, especially since not all banks are at the same stage of development,” he said.

More institutions incoming

In addition to BNP Paribas, Qivalis is in discussions with other major European banks to join as shareholders. Talks are also underway with institutions outside Europe to support cross-border use cases and explore longer-term multi-currency interoperability.

To support its roadmap, the consortium expects to grow to around 50 employees and several dozen shareholders over the next few years. According to Lugt, internal alignment across banks has improved significantly.

“Now that the structure is taking shape, it has become much easier to engage in concrete discussions. But also because the internal adoption and understanding of stablecoins within European banks has advanced considerably,” he said.

L'avis de Blockstories

The strength and momentum of the consortium, reinforced by BNP Paribas joining, should encourage more banks to participate rather than launch separate initiatives. This is good news for Europe: a strong consortium is far better than multiple small, country-specific stablecoins.

There is another key point: Europe does not have a fully unified bond market. If each bank issued its own stablecoin, the reserves would naturally reflect its home country’s bonds, creating competing euro stablecoins with different risk and trust profiles. Which one would users prefer? Which one would markets trust?

This fragmented approach could, in the worst case, undermine the coherence of the euro by creating parallel versions of it. A consortium model avoids this by pooling risk and harmonizing standards, which ultimately strengthens the euro. For this reason, aligning reserve composition will be a decisive issue in the months ahead.