For most of 2023 and 2024, bank interest in stablecoins expressed itself in announcements. By mid-2026, several of those announcements have become production systems. The shift is not uniform — most large US banks are still running proofs-of-concept — but the direction is clear: banks are treating stablecoin and deposit-token rails as real infrastructure, and the GENIUS Act has removed the principal legal obstacle for US institutions.
This is what actually shipped, what is in progress, and what it means for the payments landscape.
The legal turning point: GENIUS Act, July 2025
The GENIUS Act, signed 18 July 2025, created the first US federal framework for payment stablecoins. Before it, banks interested in issuing stablecoins faced an unresolved legal question: what exactly was a bank-issued stablecoin, and which regulator owned it?
The GENIUS Act answers that. Bank subsidiaries can now issue payment stablecoins under their existing bank charter and regulator — the OCC for national banks, state regulators for state-chartered institutions. Non-bank issuers apply through an OCC pathway. The law requires 100% liquid reserve backing, monthly disclosures, Bank Secrecy Act compliance, and prohibits paying interest on the stablecoin itself.
For US banks, the GENIUS Act provided the compliance framework that made a board-approved stablecoin product possible. The result was a wave of announcements converting to launches in late 2025 and early 2026.
What actually shipped
JPMorgan — JPMD deposit token
On 12 November 2025, JPMorgan's Kinexys unit launched JPMD — a USD deposit token — on Coinbase's Base network, an Ethereum Layer 2. Early clients included B2C2, Coinbase, and Mastercard. Transfers settled in seconds and operated 24/7.
JPMD is technically a deposit token, not a payment stablecoin in the GENIUS Act sense: it represents a digital claim on funds held in a JPMorgan bank account, not a segregated reserve. That distinction matters legally — deposit tokens remain bank liabilities and may carry FDIC protection up to applicable limits — but operationally, JPMD functions like a stablecoin for institutional settlement. It is not available to retail users; access requires corporate onboarding and full JPMorgan compliance checks.
SoFi — sofiUSD
SoFi launched sofiUSD, a payment stablecoin, making SoFi Bank one of the first US depository institutions to issue under the GENIUS Act framework. sofiUSD is a consumer-facing product, distinct from JPMD's institutional-only positioning.
Citi — token services
Citi launched token services for institutional clients, enabling digital representations of client deposits for use in treasury and settlement workflows. Citi participated in the New York Fed's regulated liability network proof-of-concept and is among the more active US banks in the blockchain settlement space.
Wells Fargo, Bank of America — proofs of concept
Wells Fargo piloted a proprietary digital cash network for internal cross-border transfers and reported it as faster and cheaper than SWIFT for those flows. Bank of America announced stablecoin exploration in 2025 but has not shipped a public product as of mid-2026. Both institutions are part of a joint initiative with JPMorgan and Citi (via The Clearing House) to build a shared tokenised-deposit network — targeting launch in the first half of 2027.
The European consortium: Qivalis
The most significant collective bank move in stablecoins in 2025–2026 is European. Qivalis was incorporated in September 2025 as a joint venture of nine banks: Banca Sella, CaixaBank, Danske Bank, DekaBank, ING, KBC, Raiffeisen Bank International, SEB, and UniCredit. BNP Paribas joined in December. By mid-2026, the consortium has grown to 37 European banks.
Qivalis plans to issue a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin — 100% reserve-backed in euros and high-quality liquid assets, held by regulated custodians — under Dutch Central Bank supervision. It is targeting a licence and launch in the second half of 2026. The technical infrastructure will use Fireblocks as the underlying platform.
| Feature | Qivalis |
|---|---|
| Consortium size | 37 banks (as of mid-2026) |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) |
| Regulatory framework | MiCA — Dutch Central Bank licensed |
| Infrastructure | Fireblocks |
| Target launch | H2 2026 |
| Settlement | 24/7, near-instant |
The Qivalis move is significant because it represents banks choosing to build a shared stablecoin rather than rely on third-party issuers like Circle or Tether. The 37-bank consortium covers a substantial share of European retail and corporate banking.
SWIFT: integration rather than replacement
SWIFT's response to blockchain-based settlement has been integration rather than resistance. In 2025, SWIFT coordinated a 12-week proof-of-concept through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Innovation Center with nine institutions: BNY Mellon, Citi, HSBC, Mastercard, PNC Bank, TD Bank, Truist, US Bank, and Wells Fargo. In November 2025, SWIFT launched blockchain integration with more than 30 financial institutions in pilots.
SWIFT's official position is that its network can serve as an interoperability layer connecting tokenised and traditional payment systems, rather than being displaced by them. Whether that positioning holds as bank-issued stablecoins mature into production is one of the open questions for 2027.
Visa and Mastercard
Visa expanded its stablecoin settlement operations and became a corporate validator on Tempo's network in April 2026 — a role that involved six months of internal integration testing. Visa's stablecoin settlement program connects to multiple stablecoin rails for cross-border disbursements.
Mastercard is listed in its Crypto Partner Program and has been a design partner for Tempo since the testnet launch in December 2025. Mastercard processed early institutional transactions on the JPMD/Base system. It is also exploring card rail and stablecoin rail interoperability — settling card transactions in stablecoins as an alternative to correspondent banking.
The shared tokenised-deposit network
JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo — coordinated through The Clearing House — are building a shared network of tokenised deposits targeting launch in the first half of 2027. If it ships on schedule, this consortium will represent the US commercial banking sector's collective answer to the stablecoin market: a bank-controlled, regulated-liability network for dollar-denominated digital settlement.
What this means for the payments landscape
Several structural shifts are now visible:
Banks are not sitting out. The concern from 2023 — that banks would be bypassed by stablecoin issuers — has not materialised as a clean displacement. Banks are issuing their own tokens, joining consortia, and integrating with existing stablecoin rails. The picture is layered, not binary.
Institutional-only vs. consumer reach. JPMD is institutional-only. The Clearing House network will also target institutional use. Consumer stablecoin adoption is being driven by fintech companies — Stripe, Coinbase, Deel — rather than by traditional banks.
The euro stablecoin gap. Qivalis is racing to fill a gap: MiCA made it illegal for Tether to issue euro-denominated USDT to EU persons without a licence, and Circle's euro stablecoin (EURC) has limited distribution. A bank-backed euro stablecoin at scale would change the European landscape.
SWIFT integration vs. displacement is still live. The SWIFT pilot results suggest integration is technically feasible. Whether institutions actually route payments via SWIFT's blockchain layer or bypass it in favour of direct stablecoin rails depends on costs and adoption curves that will clarify over 2026–2027.
For more on the compliance requirements banks now face, see Stablecoin AML and sanctions compliance. For the supply and volume numbers underpinning this landscape, see The state of stablecoins in 2026.