10 major banks, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and UBS, just confirmed they’re teaming up to study the launch of a stablecoin tied to G7 currencies. Citi, MUFG, Barclays, TD Bank, Santander, and BNP Paribas round out the group.
According to banks’ statement, the project is early stage but designed to test whether blockchain-based tokens pegged 1:1 to fiat can work at global scale.
The pitch is straightforward. A shared platform could deliver efficiency, drive competition, and keep everything inside regulatory guardrails.
The banks stressed compliance and risk controls as part of the framework, maybe anticipating pushback from policymakers who’ve sounded the alarm for years on privately issued money (see Largest Banks by Assets and Deposits in the U.S.).
Crypto’s rebound this year, plus U.S. President Donald Trump’s vocal backing of the sector, has spurred fresh curiosity inside Wall Street boardrooms.
Stablecoins, despite regulatory heat, still dominate as a bridge asset within crypto markets. Nearly 90% of transactions tied to them involve moving liquidity between trading venues.
Payments for goods or services? Roughly 6%, according to BCG estimates.
Yet the size is impossible to ignore. Tether, headquartered in El Salvador, commands $179bn of the $310bn global stablecoin float, based on CoinGecko numbers.
Societe Generale dipped in earlier this year with a dollar-backed token through its digital asset arm, though adoption lagged—just $30.6mn circulating.
Meanwhile in Europe, a separate consortium of nine banks led by ING and UniCredit announced plans to roll out a euro stablecoin.
That move underscored the growing divide: some institutions betting on pegged tokens, others leaning toward asset tokenisation. Citi’s chief executive argued last July that tokenised deposits might actually outlast stablecoins in practical use.
Central bankers aren’t exactly cheering. Andrew Bailey at the Bank of England urged UK lenders to steer clear of issuing their own coins.
Christine Lagarde at the European Central Bank said in June that private stablecoins could disrupt monetary policy and financial stability. And that tension hasn’t gone away.
For now, most pilots remain experiments. Executives admit progress on tokenising traditional assets has dragged.
Stablecoins look more like a halfway house between crypto and legacy banking. The question is whether this new banking alliance can transform that stopgap into a credible industry-wide product—or whether it stalls in committee rooms like so many digital finance initiatives before it.
The Official G7 Currencies
- United States: US dollar (USD)
- United Kingdom: British pound (GBP)
- Canada: Canadian dollar (CAD)
- Japan: Japanese yen (JPY)
- France: Euro (EUR)
- Germany: Euro (EUR)
- Italy: Euro (EUR)
