21 Banks Commit to Joint USD Stablecoin Company for 2026–27
Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs and 18 other institutions will form a company in H2 2026 to issue a dollar stablecoin targeted for H1 2027. Name and reserves are still open.
Twenty-one financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citi, and Goldman Sachs, said they have committed to establish a new company in the second half of 2026 to issue a US dollar stablecoin — a digital token intended to track the dollar for payments and settlement.
A dollar token is targeted to reach the market in the first half of 2027.
The group is treating on-chain issuance as core payments infrastructure rather than a limited experiment. Who is exposed are the member firms that would have to capitalize and govern the issuer, customers who would use the token for payments and settlement, and the dollar-token market banks have so far left to non-bank issuers.
The company’s name has not been decided. Reserve design, technical architecture, and governance were not disclosed.
The 21 names
The announcement named 21 members across five regions.
In North America: Bank of America, Capital One, Citi, Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs, PNC Financial Services, Scotiabank, TD Bank Group, Wells Fargo, and WisdomTree.
In Europe: Banco Santander, BBVA, Commerzbank, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Rabobank, and UBS.
MUFG Bank is the East Asia member. Sirius International Holding is the Middle East member. Standard Bank is the Africa member.
Boston Consulting Group and Brunswick Group are advising. They said they have no authority to bind the consortium or any of its members.
What they say they will issue
The unnamed company will focus first on a dollar token for wholesale, institutional, and retail use. Stated uses include cross-border payments and digital-asset settlement.
The group said it later wants to add other Group of Seven currencies, starting with the euro.
The product is described as combining bank-grade compliance, governance, distribution, and risk management. It is intended to comply with the US GENIUS Act — federal stablecoin legislation — and with the European Union’s MiCA crypto-asset rules where those apply.
Tuesday’s statement did not name reserve assets, the ledger or ledgers the token would run on, or distribution partners.
From study group to a dated issuer
This is an update to work that has been underway for almost a year, not a newly formed group.
Ten institutions first said in October 2025 that they were exploring a one-to-one reserve-backed digital payment asset that could be issued on public blockchains — ledgers that are open to read and settle on. Membership has since more than doubled.
The material change is the dated company plan. The members have named a second-half 2026 window to stand up the issuer and a first-half 2027 window for a dollar token.
Separate from JP Morgan, and from smaller banks
The consortium is a separate track from JP Morgan’s own work. JP Morgan is not among the 21.
The bank has held preliminary internal discussions about issuing a stablecoin of its own, distinct from JPM Coin, its existing tokenized-deposit product — a bank deposit represented as a token on a ledger. A bank spokeswoman said any decision would depend on customer demand and how regulation develops.
A third effort, the BankChain Alliance, groups thousands of smaller lenders under 39 state banking associations. That project is built around a shared blockchain network for tokenized deposits and bank-issued stablecoins, with a 2027 launch target.
The three tracks put large global firms, JP Morgan on its own, and smaller US lenders on overlapping 2026–2027 calendars. A dollar-stablecoin market of roughly $300 billion in late August is the stock of tokens already in circulation around that work.
The plumbing around them
The same week, market plumbing around ledgers moved in parallel.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has set a September 17, 2026 roundtable in Washington on round-the-clock stock trading. Panelists named by the agency include Citi, BlackRock, Nasdaq, Charles Schwab, Jane Street, and the New York Stock Exchange. Agenda items include exchange readiness, system resiliency, surveillance, cybersecurity, liquidity, and investor protections. SEC Chair Paul Atkins tied full-time trading to attracting global liquidity while stressing operational safeguards.
Separately, the SEC proposed updating transfer-agent rules written largely in the 1970s. Transfer agents keep official records of who owns securities and help process transfers, dividends, and mergers. Atkins said the changes are meant to reflect electronic communications and blockchain. Firms using distributed ledgers would still have to manage data integrity, security, and operational design. Using smart contracts — code that executes transfers under preset conditions — would not remove a transfer agent’s obligations.
The commission opened a 60-day public comment period. Commissioner Hester Peirce supported the proposal. Injective Institutional Services recently became an SEC-registered transfer agent. Securitize and tZERO already operate as registered transfer agents around digital securities.
What remains unknown
The new entity’s name is still to be decided.
Exact reserve mechanics, governance, technical architecture, and distribution partners have not been disclosed. It is not yet public how the 21 members will share control, capital, or liability inside the company.
Whether the token meets GENIUS Act and MiCA requirements in practice depends on those missing details. The October 2025 exploration spoke of one-to-one reserves on public blockchains. The latest commitment did not restate those terms.
JP Morgan’s internal review remains unresolved. The BankChain Alliance’s 2027 target is a stated aim, not a completed launch.