On September 1, 2026, 21 major financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank, committed to establishing a new company in the second half of 2026 to issue a stablecoin. The consortium plans to launch a dollar token in the first half of 2027, with a euro version to follow, and states the product will be compliant with the GENIUS Act and MiCA regulations. This development represents a significant shift as banks that previously fought stablecoins are now seeking to issue their own tokens to defend their market position. According to Tianwei Liu, CEO and co-founder of StraitsX, 2026 has been an inflection point for stablecoins, with regulatory clarity and institutional adoption making the cost of sitting out harder to ignore.
The consortium's formation follows the GENIUS Act, which provided banks with a federal framework where there was previously only uncertainty. Vincent Chok, CEO and co-founder of First Digital, explains that "The law changed. The GENIUS Act gave banks a rulebook where there was previously only uncertainty, defining what a stablecoin is and what is required before issuing one." The shift is also driven by massive growth in stablecoin adoption, with supply rising from $27 billion at the end of 2020 to more than $300 billion today. Cross-border flows into the US alone total nearly $127 billion a month, and businesses settled $226 billion in B2B payments in stablecoins last year, according to Artemis Analytics. Ianai Urwicz, co-founder and CEO of Infinia, notes that "Global B2B stablecoin payments surged 733% year-on-year to $226 billion in 2025," representing an immediate threat of deposit flight as up to $1 trillion in emerging-market bank deposits could migrate into stablecoins over the next three years.
Despite joining the stablecoin consortium, Deutsche Bank's digital asset custody service for European institutional and corporate clients is set to go live by the end of 2026, subject to completion of applicable regulatory checks. The service will initially support a limited selection of digital assets, including bitcoin, ether and stablecoins like USDC and EURC. According to details released on September 16, the service will initially focus on clients in Germany, with target groups including asset managers, hedge funds, custodians, brokers, sovereign institutions, corporates and companies working with blockchain technology. The platform will allow institutional and corporate clients to safeguard digital assets and transfer them to third parties while Deutsche Bank manages their wallets and private keys using warm and cold storage environments. While the bank has not specified which particular crypto assets will be supported upon launch, the custody offering is expected to cover major cryptocurrencies that meet the bank's compliance and risk standards.
Deutsche Bank's custody model places responsibility for wallet and private-key management with the bank, reducing institutional clients' need to develop their own key-management infrastructure. The planned security structure includes hardware-based key protection, secure key generation, segregation of duties and multi-person approval for transactions. According to earlier disclosures, the bank has been working with Taurus since September 2023 for custody and tokenization technology, while also collaborating with Bitpanda Technology Solutions for the planned 2026 custody service. Bitpanda has since renamed its institutional operation to Bitpanda Enterprise. The service joins European rivals including Standard Chartered and BBVA in offering regulated cryptocurrency custody as institutional demand grows.
The consortium's stablecoin launch comes as Tether's USDT, at roughly $183 billion, is larger than every other stablecoin combined as of mid-September, with Open USD due later this year, with more than 140 partners lined up to share its reserve income. Circle switched on Arc's public mainnet on September 16, a layer-1 network where fees are paid in USDC, with validators including BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, Standard Chartered, and DTCC. However, independent stablecoins maintain network advantages, as **Triple-A's Eric Barbier explains that "They can move across banks, wallets, payment providers, and blockchains, rather than being tied to a single institution's ecosystem." Alex Witt from Verda Ventures notes that "A bank consortium coin will be excellent for institutional settlement in New York, but it won't be the dollar a P2P desk in Lagos or a supplier in Buenos Aires actually quotes and holds." Deutsche Bank's strategy positions it competitively against German rivals such as DZ Bank and Commerzbank who have already secured regulatory approvals, while the bank can connect crypto custody with existing banking relationships across Europe.
