Banking stablecoin consortium Qivalis hasn’t issued a single token yet. But when it comes to rallying European banks, it’s already veni, vidi, vici.
This week, we got word that the group, which currently has 12 members including BNP Paribas, UniCredit, ING, and BBVA, will soon grow by another 20 banks.
The official announcement is expected by the end of May, but we obtained the list of incoming members: Groupe BPCE, Crédit Mutuel, ABN AMRO, Erste Group, Nordea, Swedbank, Handelsbanken, Bank of Ireland, National Bank of Greece, Banco Sabadell, and others.
“Many small and mid-sized banks will never have the resources to build and scale their own stablecoin. Joining the consortium is therefore a very attractive option,” an executive at one of the new members told us. He also pointed to internal hesitation around crypto-native issuers, which remain poorly understood at board level and are increasingly viewed as potential future competitors.
Still, at this point, joining Qivalis feels a bit like adding “AI-ready” to your website. You get to look forward-facing and claim you backed the winning horse, but it doesn’t mean you have to build the stack or launch anything tomorrow.
Most won't be ready to do so, either. Now that they've decided how to play the stablecoin issuance game, attention will shift to concrete use cases and integration. That will require investment in infrastructure.
One of those building blocks is stablecoin-to-fiat settlement, which is the subject of today’s top story.
In today’s Briefing:
Amundi lists Bitcoin ETP on Euronext
Banking Circle launches a full fiat–to-stablecoin settlement service
HIGH SIGNAL NEWS
Amundi launches Bitcoin ETP. Europe’s largest asset manager has listed its regulated Bitcoin product on Euronext Paris. CACEIS, a Crédit Agricole subsidiary, acts as custodian for the underlying Bitcoin. 🇫🇷
State Street announces launch of tokenized fund servicing from Luxembourg. The offering will run on State Street’s Digital Asset Platform, introduced last January, and support full-lifecycle management for tokenized fund issuance. It is expected to go live by the end of 2026. 🇱🇺
Morgan Stanley launches money market fund targeting stablecoin issuers. The Stablecoin Reserves Portfolio (MSNXX) is designed for reserve management, with assets structured to meet GENIUS Act requirements. The launch follows a similar offering announced by BNY Mellon in November. 🪙
Broadridge expands proxy voting solution to support Ondo Finance’s tokenized stocks standard. Ondo becomes the second announced client for the back-office infrastructure giant’s service, following Galaxy. Two weeks ago, we unpacked how the solution works. 🇺🇸
Lise completes first IPO under EU DLT Pilot Regime. Using Lise’s integrated MTF and CSD infrastructure, French aerospace manufacturer SME ST Group raised just over €2 million. For more details, see our recent article about the IPO. 🏦
FIS launches a platform that enables banks to manage onchain cash. Named Lyriq, the platform from the major core banking software provider will enable banks to issue and manage tokenized deposits and digital currencies, such as stablecoins, while keeping these assets on the issuing bank’s balance sheet. 🌐
TOP STORY
Banking Circle Launches Full Fiat–Stablecoin Settlement Service
Stablecoin settlement, banked: On Monday, Banking Circle launched a fiat-stablecoin settlement service for its institutional clients, allowing them to send and receive stablecoins 24/7 through the bank’s existing infrastructure. The launch follows the Luxembourg-based bank’s CASP license from the CSSF, granted on April 15.
The second EU credit institution: Banking Circle is one of Europe’s leading payment infrastructure providers, moving €1.5 trillion in annual flows for over 700 institutional clients across cross-border and instant payments. With the launch, it now has become the second EU credit institution to offer a fiat-to-stablecoin settlement service, following Netherlands-based ClearBank, which announced its own MiCA-approved service supporting EURC and USDC on- and off-ramps three weeks earlier.
Why it matters: Most European banks today still cannot let their clients send or receive stablecoins inside a regulated environment. Two specialist credit institutions launching such a service within three weeks of each other is the first sign that this gap is starting to close at the payment-infrastructure layer of the banking sector, ahead of the larger retail and universal banks.
“In 2025, integrating stablecoins ranked among the top three strategic priorities for our clients. The interest in this service comes primarily from traditional fintechs rather than crypto-native players,” said Kirit Bhatia, Chief Digital Assets Officer at Banking Circle, to Blockstories. “They want cross-border transfers settled in minutes, not days, and greater agility in their treasury management.”
Two kinds of clients: The demand identified by Banking Circle splits into two distinct groups. Both want what existing fiat rails cannot give them: settlement in minutes, inside a regulated environment.
The first group is merchant acquirers, whose card-network funds enter transit on a Friday and do not arrive until Tuesday, leaving merchants waiting through the weekend on volumes they have already earned.
The second group is the corporate treasurers running those payment companies, who face the same delays internally when moving liquidity between their own subsidiaries across jurisdictions.
The credit mechanic: For merchant acquirers, Banking Circle solves the weekend wait by minting a stablecoin and pushing it to the merchant in minutes, against either liquidity the merchant already holds with the bank or a credit line extended on the funds already in transit from the card network. The stablecoins themselves are sourced directly from issuers like Circle and Paxos or through market makers Banking Circle already works with. When the fiat finally arrives days later, it closes the position.
Benefits of being a bank: The mechanic only works because Banking Circle is a credit institution. It can lend against incoming receivables in a way a non-bank payments provider cannot, which is what makes minting against in-transit funds operationally viable.
The closed loop on the way back: A similar logic applies in the other direction, when a fintech wants to convert stablecoins back into fiat. The counterparty providing the fiat liquidity is typically a market maker or stablecoin issuer, and many of those firms already hold accounts at Banking Circle, which means the conversion often happens entirely within the bank’s books rather than across separate institutions.
T+0 in practice: The result is T+0 settlement: the cash is immediately available in the client's Banking Circle account and routable out via SWIFT, wire transfer, SEPA Instant, or Banking Circle's internal settlement network without leaving the platform.
End-to-end automation: What ties both flows together is that neither requires a human in the loop. The service is delivered through Banking Circle’s existing API, used today by all 700+ clients, with a handful of additional endpoints for stablecoin functionality.
Rollout plan: The first live transaction is targeted for the end of June 2026, with the service then rolled out progressively on a flow-by-flow basis: same-currency conversions first, followed by cross-currency conversions in Q3 and Q4. Banking Circle is also pursuing CASP-equivalent licenses in jurisdictions outside Europe to expand global access for its clients.
“Even with a modest conversion of the pipeline, within 9 to 12 months, we could be processing between $500 million and $1 billion in monthly inflows,” Bhatia said. “As of today, we support USDC from Circle and USDG from Paxos, as well as our euro stablecoin EURI. But the focus in the coming months will be on adding more regulated stablecoins to our offering, as well as expanding to other networks beyond Ethereum.”
Tony McLaughlin is the founder and CEO of Ubyx, a global acceptance network designed to make stablecoins as easy to receive and settle as traditional payment instruments.
Why should large banks integrate fiat-stablecoin settlement, and do current volumes already justify the investment?
The commercial case is simple: stablecoins create new fee and FX revenue from flows that currently bypass banks. For decades, banks earned FX spreads when they sold and cashed traveller's checks at the counter, and no one saw them as a threat. Stablecoins are the same instrument in a new form. Banks that capture and convert these flows will earn the FX; those that don't will lose that revenue to competitors.
Skeptics who point to today's volumes should remember the credit card market. In the late 1960s, BankAmericard had only just begun licensing beyond Bank of America, and the international rollout under different brand names — Barclaycard, Carte Bleue, Chargex, Sumitomo — was still in its infancy. Nobody imagined that around 14,500 financial institutions worldwide would one day issue Visa cards, fully interoperable across more than 200 countries and territories.
We solved the many-to-many problem for checks, for ACH, for cards. We will solve it for tokenized money. Banks that position themselves now will not need to retrofit under pressure when that moment arrives.
More importantly, by offering wallets that allow customers to receive stablecoins and tokenized deposits, banks equip themselves with the infrastructure needed to support future digital asset use cases. Central banks will also favor this approach: if USD stablecoins are to circulate in Europe, regulators are likely to prefer that they sit within regulated financial institutions rather than in self-custody wallets.
BBVA: Senior Digital Assets Business Specialist, Madrid 🇪🇸
Deutsche Bank: Digital Asset Custody Product Manager, Frankfurt 🇩🇪
DTCC: Principal Solutions Architect (Blockchain & Web3), London 🇬🇧
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA): Crypto Case Officer, London 🇬🇧
Lloyds: Senior Manager - Digital Assets Risk, Edinburgh 🏴
LSEG: Lead Software Engineer - Digital Assets, London 🇬🇧
State Street: Digital Product Development – Digital Cash Lead, VP, Frankfurt 🇩🇪
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Disclaimer: The information provided in the Institutional Briefing by Blockstories does not constitute investment advice. Accordingly, we assume no liability for any investment decisions made based on the content presented herein.