Key facts
- Standard Chartered and BNY Mellon are integrating Circle's USDC stablecoin into their institutional services.
- The shift in banking focus is from questioning stablecoin inclusion to determining implementation strategies.
- The value of stablecoins is increasingly seen in their associated networks and liquidity, not just the tokens.
- European financial institutions are developing euro-denominated stablecoins to maintain settlement activity within the Eurozone.
- Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire highlighted USDC's established liquidity, banking relationships, and regulatory approvals.
Global banks, including Standard Chartered and BNY Mellon, are increasingly integrating stablecoins like Circle's USDC into their institutional services. This marks a significant shift from debating the legitimacy of stablecoins in finance to actively developing strategies for their use in payments, treasury operations, and settlement.
Standard Chartered announced it would provide institutional clients direct access to mint and redeem USDC, following BNY Mellon's expansion of its USDC custody, minting, and redemption infrastructure. These moves by globally systemically important banks suggest a trend toward leveraging established stablecoin networks rather than creating proprietary ones.
Industry executives note that the true value lies in the surrounding ecosystem of liquidity, banking relationships, and regulatory approvals, rather than the stablecoin token itself. This perspective is echoed by Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, who emphasized USDC's decade-long development in these areas.
In Europe, a consortium of 37 financial institutions called Qivalis is developing the Euro On-Chain (EUOC) stablecoin. Their goal is to provide a regulated euro-denominated alternative to prevent settlement activity from defaulting to dollar-backed tokens, especially as tokenized finance grows. Qivalis aims to foster a shared network to build euro liquidity on the blockchain, rather than competing directly with existing dollar stablecoins.
This development is driven by the preference of businesses to settle obligations in their own currencies. The success of stablecoins, particularly non-dollar ones, will depend on how effectively banks deploy them to customers and build robust networks around them.