21 Global Banks, Led by Goldman Sachs and Citi, Plan a Jointly Issued Dollar Stablecoin
The consortium — which also includes Bank of America and Deutsche Bank — plans to stand up a new, separately owned entity in the second half of 2026 and target a market launch for its dollar-backed stablecoin in the first half of 2027, with a euro-denominated version to follow.
NEW YORK — A group of 21 global financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Citi, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank, announced on Sept. 1 that they are forming a new, separately owned company to issue a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, with a market launch targeted for the first half of 2027.
The consortium plans to establish the new entity in the second half of 2026, ahead of that launch window. The banks involved have said the venture is designed to comply with both the GENIUS Act in the U.S. and the EU's MiCA framework, with an eye toward expanding beyond the dollar to other G7 currencies — prioritizing a euro-denominated stablecoin as the likely next step.
The move puts several of the world's largest banks directly into stablecoin issuance rather than partnering with or distributing an existing issuer's token, a notably different posture from banks like MVB Financial and U.S. Bank, which have run pilots settling payments using existing stablecoin networks rather than issuing their own. A jointly owned, bank-backed dollar stablecoin issued by a consortium of this size would compete directly with issuers like Circle's USDC and Tether's USDT for institutional settlement volume, while carrying the direct backing of some of the largest balance sheets in global banking.
Neither the consortium nor any of the named banks has disclosed the new entity's name, its ownership split among the 21 participants, or projected issuance volume — details that would normally shape how the market assesses the venture's reserve backing and governance. The announcement also arrives days before the Federal Reserve's Sept. 24 proposal setting capital and reserve requirements for stablecoin issuers, meaning the consortium's eventual structure will have to be built around capital rules that were still in proposed form when the venture was announced.
For competing stablecoin issuers, the entry of a bank-owned consortium at this scale is a signal that the largest incumbents in global finance now see stablecoin issuance as core infrastructure worth building jointly rather than ceding to fintech-native issuers — though a joint venture spanning 21 separately regulated institutions also carries its own governance and coordination risk that a single-issuer stablecoin does not.