Hey, it’s Marc,

Qivalis, the Amsterdam-based banking consortium building a regulated euro stablecoin, added 25 banks on Wednesday, pushing its membership to 37 institutions across 15 countries. This is the first biggest push of European banks after the US’s GENIUS Act was passed. The U.S. is turning stablecoins into a geopolitical weapon by making the US treasury pegging mandatory. Now, Europe is fighting back with the biggest commercial banking mobilization in European history. [RELEASE]

👉PRO: Download the PDF below

What happened

On May 20, Qivalis announced a 25-bank expansion that takes the consortium from 12 founding members to 37. Spain led the new wave with five additions: ABANCA, Banco Sabadell, Bankinter, Cecabank and Kutxabank. France, Sweden, Greece, the Netherlands, Finland and Ireland each contributed two new institutions. Italy added BPER and Intesa Sanpaolo to founding member UniCredit. Iceland, Luxembourg, Poland and Austria entered the consortium for the first time via Landsbankinn, Banque et Caisse d’Épargne de l’État, Bank Pekao S.A. and Erste Group respectively.

Previously, it was a consortium of 12 banks including, ING, UniCredit, BNP Paribas, CaixaBank, BBVA, Danske Bank, DekaBank, DZ BANK, KBC, Raiffeisen Bank International, SEB, and Banca Sella. [Read CEO notes]

Zooming in: The technical architecture was settled in March, when Qivalis selected Fireblocks for tokenization, wallet infrastructure and custody. The stack uses Fireblocks’ ERC-20F standard, a permissioned token framework with built-in compliance controls and role-based governance. Each member bank can offer custody, wallets and payment orchestration to its own clients. The stablecoin will be backed 1:1 by euro deposits and high-quality liquid assets held with regulated custodians.