Banks Unite to Launch Dollar Stablecoin Consortium

Twenty-one global banks have formed a consortium to develop a jointly owned dollar stablecoin. The project, which aims for a first-half 2027 launch, will be pegged one-to-one with the US dollar and backed by cash and short-term Treasuries.

The participating banks include Bank of America, Capital One, Citi, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, PNC, Scotiabank, TD Bank Group, Wells Fargo, and WisdomTree in North America. European banks such as Santander, BBVA, Commerzbank, Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds, Rabobank, and UBS are also part of the consortium.

The dollar token will initially focus on wholesale settlement and institutional transfers before expanding to retail cross-border payments. The project aims to expand into other G7 currencies, starting with the euro, which would require compliance with Europe's MiCA regulation.

The banks have given themselves roughly 16 months to solve the coordination problem of building a bank-owned rival to Tether and Circle from scratch. They haven't named a CEO or chosen a blockchain for the project yet.