Twenty-one banks and asset managers said on Tuesday 1 September that they will form a company in the second half of 2026 to issue a dollar stablecoin, with a launch targeted for the first half of 2027. The group includes Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Santander, MUFG and Fidelity Investments, and spans five regions. It has grown from the ten banks that began studying G7 currency stablecoins in October 2025.
The venture will start with a US dollar token and names the euro as the next priority, with other G7 currencies a longer ambition. It is aimed at wholesale, institutional and retail use, including cross border payments and digital asset settlement, and its backers say it will comply with the US GENIUS Act and the EU’s MiCA regime. It sits alongside, not inside, JPMorgan’s separate review of issuing a coin of its own.
Banks spent two years warning that stablecoins would drain deposits from the banking system. The GENIUS Act passed regardless and gave dollar tokens a federal framework, and Circle and Tether between them now run most of a market worth more than $280 billion. A jointly owned issuer is the response: if deposits are going to move onto a stablecoin, the banks would rather own the one they move to.
What does not exist yet is the company. There is no name, no chief executive, no disclosed division of ownership among 21 firms with different home regulators, and no stated answer on who holds the reserves or how the interest on them is shared. The announcement leans on the phrase subject to the company’s formation and other conditions. A consortium this size can stall on governance as easily as ship.
