Qivalis: the euro stablecoin of 37 banks, explained

On 20 May 2026, twenty-five banks joined a euro stablecoin project in a single announcement, taking it to 37 banks across 15 countries. Four months later, the number of coins in circulation is still zero. That gap, between the weight of the backers and the absence of the product, is the story of Qivalis so far.

What is Qivalis?

Qivalis is an Amsterdam company, Qivalis B.V., created in September 2025 by nine European banks to issue a stablecoin pegged one for one to the euro. Under MiCA, Europe’s crypto-asset rules, such a coin is an electronic money token: issued at face value when the issuer receives your euros, redeemable at face value at any time, and forbidden from paying interest.

To issue one, Qivalis must first be authorised as an electronic money institution by De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank. Its own website is explicit: the application is filed, and the company “is not yet authorised and does not currently issue electronic money or provide payment services”. The stated target is a launch in the second half of 2026, a window that opened in July. Asked in June whether the date would hold, chief executive Jan-Oliver Sell answered: “It depends on the regulator. We’re in a licensing process, and it’ll take as long as it takes.”

Which banks are behind Qivalis?

The founding nine, in September 2025, were ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank, Danske Bank, KBC, SEB, DekaBank, Raiffeisen Bank International and Banca Sella. BNP Paribas joined in December, DZ BANK in January and BBVA in February, bringing the group to twelve.

Then came 20 May 2026 and twenty-five more in one announcement: ABN AMRO, Rabobank, Nordea, Swedbank, Handelsbanken, Intesa Sanpaolo, BPER, Erste Group, Crédit Mutuel, Groupe BPCE, Bank of Ireland, AIB, Bank Pekao, National Bank of Greece, Piraeus, Helaba, Jyske Bank, OP Pohjola, Landsbankinn, Spuerkeess, and five Spanish banks at once: ABANCA, Banco Sabadell, Bankinter, Cecabank and Kutxabank. The supervisory board is chaired by Sir Howard Davies, the first chairman of the UK’s Financial Services Authority. In April, Qivalis chose Fireblocks to run the token contract, the wallets and the compliance checks.

Read the list as a map. The three largest Dutch banks, the two largest Italian ones, most of the Nordic majors, seven Spanish banks and three of France’s five largest groups are on it. If these banks ever put the coin in their apps, distribution is not a problem Qivalis will need to solve.

How is it different from EURC or Revolut’s EURR?

Who owns the issuer. Every euro stablecoin sold in Europe now lives under the same MiCA obligations, so the rules do not separate them. Ownership does. EURC is issued by Circle, an American company, through a European entity authorised under MiCA. EURR is distributed by Revolut but issued by Bridge, a Stripe subsidiary, which is the company that legally owes holders their euros. Qivalis is the reverse: the banks that will distribute the coin own the company that issues it. The claim on your euro would sit with an issuer owned, in part, by your own bank.

Who holds the reserve. MiCA requires an issuer to keep at least 30% of its reserve as deposits at banks, rising to 60% once a token is classed as significant. For a fintech that is a cost. For a consortium of banks it is home turf, and even so Sell called the 60% rule “a major financial drag” that “needs fixing”, adding that Qivalis may need up to ten treasury banks for diversification alone. The banks are building the coin and arguing against its reserve rules at the same time.

Why do banks want a euro stablecoin at all?

Because the market has already chosen the dollar. Dollar-pegged coins make up roughly 99% of stablecoin supply. The eight MiCA-compliant euro coins together were worth 673.9 million dollars at the end of June 2026, and the largest of them, EURC, had about 400 million euros in circulation in August. Sell puts the problem in one line: “In the blockchain space, the euro makes up about 0.2% of transactions.” And the consequence in another: “If there’s no usable euro, then everything just happens in dollars.”

The public alternative is slow. The European Central Bank plans a twelve-month digital euro pilot from the second half of 2027, with a possible first issuance in 2029, and only if the EU adopts the legislation this year. Qivalis wants to be live two or three years earlier, on rails the banks already understand.

Look at the use cases the consortium names, though: corporate treasury, settlement of tokenised bonds and receivables, export payments, programmable payments. Not one of them is a person paying a friend back. Sell’s own framing is that the coin “has to be available wherever the use cases are”, which so far means wholesale finance first.

Will you be able to hold it in your own wallet?

This is the open question, and the September news did not close it. Three facts are on the table.

• The chain. On 8 September the crypto press reported that the coin will be issued on public Ethereum, not on a private bank ledger. Qivalis itself has published no chain list, and third-party trackers mention Polygon and Base as later steps.
• The contract. Fireblocks issues tokens under its ERC-20F standard: an ordinary ERC-20 token, plus upgradeability, plus an access list. The issuer can run it as a denylist, blocking sanctioned addresses, or as an allowlist, where only pre-approved addresses can hold or transfer the coin. Qivalis has not said which.
• The distribution. Sell has described talks with crypto exchanges and says the shareholder banks will distribute the coin themselves, once the licence lands.

Those facts allow two very different products. One is a euro any wallet can receive, the way EURC circulates on Base today. The other is a euro that moves only between addresses the banks have verified. Both would sit on public Ethereum. Only the first is open money; the second is a walled garden with a public address.

What would it change for splitting a bill with friends?

For a bank-issued euro coin to settle a weekend between five people, it has to clear three bars.

1. An authorised issuer. Until De Nederlandsche Bank signs, nothing exists to hold.
2. A cheap chain. Paying a friend back 12 dollars makes no sense if the network fee is a noticeable share of it. Fees on Ethereum’s main chain are sized for large transfers; small ones live on a layer 2 such as Base.
3. Open access. If a wallet must be approved by a bank before it can receive the coin, the friend who banks elsewhere cannot be paid.

Today groups settle in dollar-backed USDC on Base with Spliz, because that rail clears all three bars right now. A euro coin that did the same would remove the last awkwardness of settling in dollars: the exchange rate between what you owe and what you send. Qivalis has not ruled that out. It has not promised it either.

What to watch next

• The DNB authorisation, and its entry on the ESMA register.
• The token’s name and ticker, which are still not public.
• A chain list published by Qivalis, not by trackers.
• The access-list policy: denylist or allowlist.
• The first member bank to put the coin in a consumer app.

Thirty-seven banks can build a euro. Whether it becomes your euro depends on one line in a smart contract: the access list.

Sources

• Qivalis, licence status wording and consortium overview.
• Qivalis press release, 20 May 2026: the 25 new members, use cases, Davies and Sell quotes.
• ING, full list of the 37 banks and the 15 countries (19 May 2026).
• Fireblocks, selected by Qivalis for tokenisation, wallets and compliance (21 April 2026).
• OpenZeppelin, audit of the Fireblocks ERC-20F standard: upgradeability and the allowlist or denylist access list.
• The Big Whale, interview with Jan-Oliver Sell (2 June 2026): reserve rules, timing, treasury banks.
• CoinDesk, Sell on the euro’s 0.2% share on-chain (31 March 2026).
• Cointelegraph, distribution through exchanges and shareholder banks, 30% deposit floor (March 2026).
• Genfinity, press report of the public Ethereum choice (8 September 2026), not confirmed by Qivalis at the time of writing.
• European Central Bank, digital euro pilot from the second half of 2027 and possible issuance in 2029.
• Decta, Euro Stablecoin Trends Report 2026: eight MiCA-compliant euro coins, 673.9 million dollars at end of June 2026.
• Circle, EURC circulation.
• EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA): e-money tokens, redemption at face value, ban on interest, reserve rules.