{"id":962427,"date":"2026-05-15T21:56:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/962427\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T21:56:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:56:18","slug":"europe-vies-to-close-stablecoin-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/962427\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe Vies To Close Stablecoin Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>France pushes euro stablecoins and tokenized deposits as EU banks race to close the gap with dollar-led digital payments.<\/p>\n<p>France is pressing European banks to accelerate the development of euro-denominated stablecoins, as policymakers grow concerned that the region might fall further behind the U.S. in the shift toward <a href=\"https:\/\/gfmag.com\/capital-raising-corporate-finance\/stablecoins-gain-traction-but-cfos-face-challenges\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/gfmag.com\/capital-raising-corporate-finance\/stablecoins-gain-traction-but-cfos-face-challenges\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">digital payments and tokenized finance<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure publicly called for more euro-based stablecoins and urged banks to explore tokenized deposits, saying the limited circulation of euro-pegged tokens compared with dollar-backed alternatives was \u201cnot satisfactory,\u201d during a pre-recorded address to a crypto industry conference.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, a consortium of European banks, called Qivalis, plans to launch a more competitive alternative to dollar-pegged stablecoins in the second half of this year, subject to approval from the Dutch central bank.<\/p>\n<p>Qivalis, which includes banks like\u00a0ING, UniCredit, and BNP Paribas, was formally unveiled in December and has received continued praise from European authorities. Referring to the initiative, Lescure said, \u201cThat is what we need, and that is what we want.\u201d At the same time, he strongly encouraged banks to further explore launching tokenized deposits.<\/p>\n<p>Enter Fireblocks<\/p>\n<p>Late in April, the consortium <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/major-european-bank-consortium-qivalis-plans-to-leverage-fireblocks-to-power-micar-compliant-euro-denominated-stablecoin-302748775.html\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/major-european-bank-consortium-qivalis-plans-to-leverage-fireblocks-to-power-micar-compliant-euro-denominated-stablecoin-302748775.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">selected Fireblocks<\/a> as the technology provider for its planned MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin, a step that provides it with the tokenization, wallet, and settlement infrastructure needed to move the project from planning to a planned launch in the second half of 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Around the same time, Societe Generale\u2019s digital assets unit, SG-Forge, said it was expanding its crypto client base to 15 firms, including exchanges, brokers, and wallet providers, showing that bank-linked activity is growing but remains small.<\/p>\n<p>Stablecoins are already widely used in crypto trading and are increasingly being explored for settlement, cross-border payments, and liquidity management, but the market remains overwhelmingly dollar-based as industry participants debate whether euro-pegged coins face demand or regulatory constraints.<\/p>\n<p>Recent research from RBC Capital Markets found that two-thirds of European banks surveyed still view demand for euro-pegged stablecoins as limited. Conversely, Jean-Marc Stenger, CEO of SG-Forge, has argued that a better-regulated infrastructure remains a key condition for broader adoption. <\/p>\n<p>\u201c[There is] a very, very strong need for well-regulated, robust offering in the crypto and stablecoin space,\u201d he said in an interview with Reuters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France pushes euro stablecoins and tokenized deposits as EU banks race to close the gap with dollar-led digital&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":962428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[31212,2000,299,5187,34950],"class_list":["post-962427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-cryptocurrency","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-stablecoins"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116580829572246540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/962428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}