A European banking consortium working to launch a regulated euro stablecoin expanded to 37 member institutions on May 22, adding 25 banks from 15 countries in what amounts to the most concrete institutional push yet to break dollar dominance in digital assets.
Qivalis — an Amsterdam-based joint venture supervised by the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) — announced the expansion roughly eight months after nine founding banks signed on in September 2025. The current roster includes BNP Paribas, ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank, Nordea, Danske Bank, KBC, SEB, DekaBank, Raiffeisen Bank International, and Banca Sella, along with the 25 newly added lenders. BNP Paribas joined the original group on December 1, 2025; Nordea joined on May 20, two days before the broader announcement, describing the move as part of its commitment to "strengthening European financial autonomy."
The stablecoin will be 1:1 euro-backed and issued under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR), with Qivalis targeting commercial launch in the second half of 2026. The company is seeking authorization as an Electronic Money Institution, with the DNB as regulator — a structure that keeps it firmly within traditional financial supervision rather than operating at the edges of the ruleset.
The context makes the speed of growth notable. Dollar-denominated stablecoins — primarily Tether (USDT) and Circle's USDC — command well over $300 billion in combined market capitalization and represent roughly 99% of the global stablecoin supply. Euro-pegged alternatives are a rounding error by comparison. The Financial Times reported that the expansion signals Europe's Tier-1 banks are treating this as a sovereignty question, not just a product launch.
CEO Jan-Oliver Sell, whose prior roles included Managing Director at Coinbase Germany — where he secured Germany's first BaFin crypto custody license — has framed Qivalis as Europe building its own digital financial infrastructure rather than outsourcing it to U.S. issuers. The governance structure reinforces that framing: the consortium is bank-owned and bank-governed, with Sir Howard Davies, the former chairman of the UK's Financial Services Authority, heading the Supervisory Board.
Beyond the banks themselves, Qivalis disclosed it is in advanced talks with crypto exchanges, market makers, and liquidity providers ahead of launch — the distribution layer that would determine whether institutional conviction translates into on-chain usage. A stablecoin without exchange listings and deep liquidity remains inert regardless of how many banks back it.
Whether the project delivers depends on execution in the next several months: DNB authorization, technical infrastructure, and the exchange partnerships currently in negotiation. But the membership trajectory — 12 banks at founding, 37 in eight months, spanning 15 countries — suggests the institutional appetite for a European alternative is real, even if the dollar's structural lead in crypto markets will not be closed by a single launch.
Sources: Qivalis official site; Nordea press release, May 20, 2026; CaixaBank announcement, December 2025; Financial Times, May 22, 2026