“Establishing a Common European Standard”: Why Nine Banks Are Joining Forces to Issue a Euro Stablecoin

“European customers, both companies and consumers, don’t want to deal with dozens of different euro stablecoins. They want one trusted standard. That’s why we formed a consortium: to create a common infrastructure banks can build on top of, rather than nine competing instruments, and also to have a wide distribution. That is best supported if you have a large consortium of banks backing it, both in terms of access to customers and liquidity management.

We also saw that if each bank would issue their own stablecoin, then they need to become interchangeable. That’s complex and inefficient. A lot of the benefits of blockchain are immediately taken away.

It’s taken us three years to get here. We started with a smaller group of banks, testing feasibility from different angles, client demand, risk management, regulatory fit. The conclusion was yes: there is a need and we can deliver this safely.”

“The issuer will be a standalone company based in the Netherlands and supervised within the Eurozone. All nine banks will be equal shareholders, regardless of size, and the company will have its own management and supervisory board. Each bank will be able to develop its own products, custody, wallets, liquidity tools, and offer them to clients as they see fit.

We want the stablecoin to operate as independently as possible. That means reserve management cannot become a political game where larger banks push for a bigger share. The exact reserve structure, where they are held and with which banks, is still to be decided. It could involve multiple banks or custodians, including non-consortium members. What matters is that it is robust and trusted.”

“Our initiative is not a reaction to the digital euro. We see the two as complementary. The ECB wants to build an alternative payment system, which may not even be blockchain-based. We are focused on what becomes possible thanks to blockchain: programmability, automation, onchain settlement.

We don’t have the ambition to replace existing retail payments that already work well. Instead, we want to create new possibilities, supply-chain payments triggered automatically when a shipment arrives, e-commerce transactions split instantly between the platform, the supplier, and the tax authority, or settlement in tokenized markets. That’s where a blockchain-native stablecoin adds value.”

“Our strategy is multi-chain, spanning both permissioned and permissionless environments. For practical reasons, we’ll prioritize certain networks first, but the goal is broad availability, not being tied to a single ecosystem.

We deliberately chose not to build our own L1 or L2, as that would only create yet another closed system. We want to benefit from network effects, which means leveraging the chains where activity already exists.

Even if we wouldn’t pursue DeFi integrations, once the stablecoin is issued, it might still naturally find its way there.”

“Initially, we expect demand from corporates and financial institutions, for cross-border payments, improved payment solutions and tokenized securities settlement. But it can extend to retail, B2C, and DeFi over time. The stablecoin should become a general means of onchain payment.

For users, we see it as digital cash. You hold it in your wallet to pay and be paid, but it’s not a savings product, not something we’ll promote as a store of value.

We’ve started with nine banks, but the consortium is open. Distribution won’t be limited to shareholders. We’re already in discussions with others, and we believe the network can grow to billions in issuance, not just millions.”