A group of 10 European banks, including ING, UniCredit and BNP Paribas, have formed the company Qivalis to launch in the second half of 2026 a stable digital currency (stablecoin) linked to the euro, in an attempt to counter the dominance of the US in the digital payments segment, reports Reuters.
The CEO of the Amsterdam-based company will be Jan-Oliver Sell, who was previously the head of the German division of the crypto platform Coinbase, and also worked for the Binance platform. The former president of NatWest, Howard Davies, will be the president of Qivalis, notes Agerpres.
Qivalis plans to hire 45 to 50 people in the next 18 to 24 months, Sell said.
Banks are grappling with the rapid growth of the stablecoin and cryptocurrency industries, which are seen by some lenders as potential direct competitors.
And some major financial firms in the US are preparing to launch their own stable digital currency (stablecoin) linked to the dollar.
Stablecoin, a type of currency pegged mostly to the US dollar, has become increasingly popular in recent years, and got a big boost after President Donald Trump signed the law creating the regulatory regime meant to strengthen the dollar’s status as a global reserve currency.
In 2023, the crypto division of French bank Societe Generale, SG-FORGE, launched a stable digital currency backed by the euro, but it was not widely adopted. SocGen is not part of Qivalis.
Sell explained that the launch of the stablecoin could take place at the beginning of the second semester of 2026, with the licensing process taking six to nine months. Qivalis will apply for an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license from the Central Bank of the Netherlands.
And the ECB is working on its own digital euro, as a strategic alternative to US means of payment.
Floris Lugt, head of ING’s digital assets division, who will become Qivalis’ CFO, said the group is in contact with the ECB, which “supports the plan”.
“Our impression is that they support the plan, because one of the important political goals is to achieve strategic autonomy of payments in Europe, and they are concerned about stablecoins, especially stable digital currencies linked to the dollar, and would prefer to have – it is our impression – a European champion that they can support”, said Floris Lugt.
Initially, the banks involved in the project announced in September were ING, UniCredit, Banca Sella, KBC, DekaBank, Danske Bank, SEB, Caixabank and Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI). The French group BNP Paribas also joined the group, Lugt announced on Tuesday.
Digital stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency tied to a traditional currency, usually the dollar, and allow people to move large amounts of money without using banks’ payment transfer systems. They have experienced rapid growth in recent years.
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Publisher: BE
