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On Friday, ten major banks, including Santander, BNP Paribas, Bank of America, UBS, Deutsche Bank and Citi, announced they are joining forces to explore issuing a “1:1 reserve-backed form of digital money” on public blockchains, initially focused on G7 currencies.
Why it matters
The announcement follows closely on the heels of another consortium formed by ING, UniCredit, and DekaBank, which aims to launch a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin by the second half of 2026. Though still far from operational, these initiatives highlight the growing focus among financial institutions on developing regulated forms of digital money that can complement existing payment and settlement infrastructures.
According to our information, the recent wave of announcements is driven not only by regulatory progress but also by rising concern among banks about falling behind. On Monday, another of France’s largest banking groups decided internally to join the race, with a public announcement expected soon, according to people familiar with the matter.
“In Europe, banks are starting to accept that the CBDC promised for the end of 2026 won’t be ready. Yet the market can’t afford to wait any longer given the pace at which things are moving. Now that the first big banks have publicly announced their initiatives, nobody wants to be left behind,” a French banker told Blockstories.
Consortium vs. single issuance
The recent consortia announcements reflect both caution and strategy. For reputational and execution reasons, few banks are willing to launch stablecoins alone. Consortia allow them to experiment collectively while leveraging joint distribution networks. Still, as several experts interviewed by Blockstories warned, there’s a real risk of governance paralysis, given the number of participants and diverging interests involved.
To mitigate such risks, the euro stablecoin consortium is already setting up a dedicated entity to define governance and push toward a launch in the second half of next year. The BNP Paribas- and Citi-led group, by contrast, remains at a much earlier exploratory stage.
The business Model
Both groups still face key open questions, with commercial viability chief among them. Reflecting this uncertainty, the most recent announcement deliberately avoided the term “stablecoin,” instead referring to a “1:1 reserve-backed form of digital money.”
As one consortium participant told Blockstories: “We’re still uncertain about how to make a stablecoin commercially viable for the banking group. A big question mark is what kind of assets to invest reserves in, and what yield can realistically be generated long-term.”
One proposal under discussion envisions integrating stablecoin reserves into the traditional fractional-reserve banking framework, creating new revenue opportunities beyond holding liquid assets like T-bills. As Blockstories revealed last week, intense discussions on this topic have already begun within Paris Europlace, France’s leading financial lobby, which plans to formally request clarification from regulatory authorities.
As questions over reserves and revenue models grow louder, attention is shifting to tokenized deposits as a possible solution. While their circulation is structurally more limited, they could allow banks to preserve fractional-reserve dynamics while operating on blockchain rails. Recent experiments by Sygnum, UBS, and PostFinance demonstrated cross-bank settlement, while several U.K. banks are also exploring interoperability solutions.
L'avis de Blockstories
The GENIUS Act has pushed banks all around the world — especially in the U.S. — to move faster.
For mid-sized and smaller institutions, the challenge is acute: they are most exposed to deposit flight as users shift toward faster, more seamless digital options. Consortium models offer a defensive strategy. By pooling governance and capital, these banks can issue credible, regulated stablecoins collectively rather than being outcompeted individually by larger issuers.
Global players like J.P. Morgan, Citi, or HSBC, by contrast, can rely on tokenized deposits within closed networks, because their footprint is so large. They can enable cross-border transfers across their own balance sheets.
Longer term, the smartest banks will do both: stablecoins for public interoperability and tokenized deposits for yield and efficiency. But first, they must master receiving and managing others’ stablecoins, or risk losing clients to more agile competitors.
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