Bank of America, Goldman and Citi Team Up: Why 21 Financial Giants Are Building Their Own Stablecoin for 2027

Twenty-one of the world’s largest financial institutions — including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Santander, MUFG and Fidelity Investments — are planning to establish a new company to develop and issue stablecoins, in one of the most significant traditional finance incursions into digital dollars to date.

The consortium, announced Tuesday, plans to launch a US dollar-denominated stablecoin in the first half of 2027, subject to the company’s formation and other conditions. The group ultimately intends to expand into stablecoins denominated in other G7 currencies, with a euro offering identified as its next priority.

## What the venture will do

According to the announcement, the consortium’s stablecoin will target wholesale, institutional and retail markets, with use cases including cross-border payments and digital asset settlement. The initiative is intended to comply with both the US GENIUS Act and the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, where applicable — a clear sign that the banks see a workable compliance path under the new regulatory frameworks that took shape over the past two years.

The venture builds on an initiative announced last October, when an initial group of 10 banks said they were exploring issuing a 1:1 reserve-backed form of digital money available on public blockchains. The consortium has since more than doubled in size, bringing together financial institutions across North America, Europe, East Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

That growth trajectory is itself telling. What began as an exploratory working group has hardened into a formal incorporation plan with a launch date, suggesting the banks concluded that staying out of the stablecoin market was a bigger strategic risk than entering it.

## A crowded field gets more crowded

The banking consortium will enter a market that already hosts both entrenched crypto-native giants and increasingly aggressive institutional players. Societe Generale’s crypto subsidiary has issued euro- and dollar-denominated stablecoins. Fidelity, itself a member of the new consortium, recently launched its own US dollar-pegged FIDD stablecoin through a national trust bank. Last month, Standard Chartered backed a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin venture.

Institutional appetite has been building for some time. A Fireblocks survey of 295 executives conducted in early 2025 found that 90% of respondents were already using or planning to use stablecoins — a statistic that helps explain why the consortium’s membership has expanded so rapidly since its first incarnation.

The regulatory backdrop has also shifted decisively. The passage of the GENIUS Act in the United States and MiCA in the European Union created clearer pathways for payment stablecoin issuance, and regulators in other jurisdictions are following. On the same day the consortium was announced, Singapore’s central bank said it was considering allowing jointly issued cross-border stablecoins into its regulatory regime, revisiting an earlier decision to restrict its framework to domestic issuance.

## Why banks are doing this themselves

The logic behind a bank-owned stablecoin venture is straightforward. Stablecoins have become one of the fastest-growing financial instruments in the world, and they increasingly sit at the center of cross-border payments, tokenized asset settlement and corporate treasury operations. Banks that do not control a credible stablecoin risk being disintermediated by crypto-native issuers — or by competitors inside their own industry.

By banding together, the 21 institutions also solve a collective action problem. A stablecoin issued by a single bank would chiefly benefit that bank’s clients; a jointly issued stablecoin creates a neutral, industry-wide settlement asset that no individual competitor controls. The model mirrors earlier bank consortia in areas like trade finance and payments infrastructure, where rivals pooled resources to build shared utilities.

The GENIUS Act compliance angle matters here as well. US rules for payment stablecoins impose reserve, disclosure and operational requirements that are easier for a consortium of systemically important banks to satisfy than for a startup — turning regulation from a barrier into a competitive moat.

## What it means for the market

For the existing stablecoin giants — Tether and Circle chief among them — a bank consortium entering the wholesale and settlement space represents a genuine competitive threat, particularly in institutional corridors where trust in banking counterparties runs deepest. The first-half 2027 timeline gives incumbents roughly a year to entrench their positions in payments and remittances before the banks arrive at scale.

For the broader crypto market, the announcement is further validation that stablecoins are transitioning from a crypto trading convenience to core financial market infrastructure. When 21 institutions spanning five continents agree to jointly build issuance infrastructure, the debate over whether digital dollars have a place in mainstream finance is effectively over.

The open question is execution. Bank consortia have a mixed track record of shipping technology quickly, and 2027 is a long runway in a market where stablecoin adoption has been compounding annually. But with regulatory clarity in place and membership still growing, this week’s announcement makes one thing clear: the next battle for the stablecoin market will be fought by some of the largest names in global banking.