Bank of America, Citi and Goldman Sachs Launch Joint Stablecoin Venture

A group of 21 banks and investment firms, including Bank of America, Citi and Goldman Sachs, has announced plans to form a joint venture to issue stablecoins. The company will focus on payments and digital asset settlement, with the first product set to reach the market in 2027.

What Happened

On Tuesday, September 1, the group of financial institutions said it intends to register a new company in the second half of 2026. The name of the future entity has not been disclosed yet: everything depends on the completion of closing procedures among the participants. The company's first product is a dollar-pegged stablecoin, built for payments and settlement of digital asset transactions on public blockchains.

According to the companies, the product is expected to launch in the first half of 2027. The finished product will extend an initiative that 10 banks first presented in October 2025. Back then, the plan involved a digital payment asset backed one-to-one by reserves and available on public blockchains. Within a year, the project grew from an idea into a concrete structure with clear launch timelines.

In the joint statement, participants emphasized settlement speed. Payments on public blockchains settle within minutes, while traditional correspondent transfers between banks in different countries can take several days. The banks do not directly explain why they chose to issue their own token instead of working with existing stablecoins. But the logic is fairly clear. Control over reserves and settlement infrastructure gives large institutions more influence over their own payment rails than a partnership with outside issuers like Tether or Circle.

Who Is Involved

Besides Bank of America, Citi and Goldman Sachs, the initiative also includes UBS, Wells Fargo, Deutsche Bank, Santander, Fidelity Investments, MUFG Bank and Standard Bank. Participants represent North America, Europe, East Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Fidelity Investments represents the interests of institutional investors in the US, while Standard Bank is the largest bank in Africa by assets. Japan's MUFG Bank and Spain's Santander bring their client bases in Asia and Southern Europe respectively.

The project traces back to October 2025, when ten banks first said they intended to explore issuing a digital payment asset. Over 11 months, the number of participants more than doubled, and investment firms joined alongside the banks. That mix of participants has a practical reason. For a stablecoin to actually work for cross-border settlement, it needs partners with licenses and client bases across several jurisdictions at once. Adding investment firms like Fidelity also opens a path for building the stablecoin into traditional investment products, beyond payment services alone.

Regulatory Requirements and Launch Plan

The group said it intends to meet the requirements of the US GENIUS Act and the European Union's MiCA framework. The first law, passed in the US last year, requires stablecoin issuers to hold full reserves, obtain a license and grant clients the right to redeem tokens at face value. MiCA sets out similar rules for issuing tokens pegged to fiat currencies across the EU.

• The company is expected to be registered in the second half of 2026, subject to closing conditions.
• The first stablecoin will be pegged to the dollar and launch in the first half of 2027.
• A euro-pegged token will follow as the next step.
• Later, the company plans to add stablecoins tied to other Group of Seven currencies.

This phased approach lets the company test the product on the largest market first, then scale it to other currencies and regions. For the banks, it is also a way to confirm regulatory compliance before tokens appear in jurisdictions with their own separate rules. Prioritizing the euro after the dollar has a specific reason. MiCA is already fully in effect across the EU, while most other jurisdictions are still drafting their own stablecoin rules. Meeting two different regulatory regimes at once, right from the start of a project, is rare. Most stablecoin issuers first get approval in one jurisdiction and only later expand into other markets.

Market Reaction

Shares of Circle, the issuer of USDC, fell roughly 6% on Tuesday, underperforming most crypto-linked stocks. Investors read the news as a sign of growing competition for the second-largest dollar-pegged stablecoin.

The total stablecoin market cap grew from about $200 billion at the start of last year to roughly $303 billion as of now, according to DeFiLlama. Tether's USDT accounts for about 60% of that market, while Circle's USDC holds a little over 20%. That concentration of the market in the hands of two private issuers worries some institutional investors, who want to diversify their risk and have an alternative in case one issuer runs into reserve problems.

Pressure on Circle had already mounted back in June, when more than 140 companies, including Stripe, Coinbase, Visa, Mastercard and BlackRock, announced the launch of Open USD, a rival stablecoin. The new bank-led venture adds yet another potential competitor to an already crowded market that has seen three major initiatives against Tether and Circle's dominance in the past year alone.

For Ukrainian users who hold savings in USDT, growing institutional trust in reserve-backed stablecoins adds another argument for the asset's stability. Kurslog rates update in real time, so users can sell USDT for hryvnia at any moment based on current exchanger offers.

Participants have not disclosed the future company's exact name yet. More details about the product are expected closer to the launch in the first half of 2027.