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In a joint statement on Friday, Banco Santander, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, MUFG Bank Ltd, TD Bank Group, and UBS said they are “jointly exploring the issuance of a 1:1 reserve-backed form of digital money that provides a stable payment asset available on public blockchains, focused on G7 currencies.”
The Group of Seven (G7) countries are made up of the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
The announcement did not reveal a timeline for the project, which would likely compete with Tether’s USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin by market cap.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose value is tied to non-volatile fiat currencies such as dollars, euros, or yen. They play a key role in the cryptoverse, allowing users to transfer money internationally.
 
The goal of the joint initiative is to determine whether “a new industry-wide offering could bring the benefits of digital assets and enhance competition across the market, while ensuring full compliance with regulatory requirements and best practice risk management,” the statement reads.
The banks also revealed that they are “in contact with regulators and supervisors in each relevant market and will continue to keep appropriate parties updated as the project progresses.”
Some of the biggest names in the traditional financial (TradFi) world, like Amazon and Walmart, and major banks like Bank of America, have in recent months expressed interest in introducing their own tokens. This is after the passage of the GENIUS Act, a bill to regulate issuing and trading stablecoins, which was signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump in July.
Besides Tether’s USDT, which has a market cap of around $179 billion at press time, other top stablecoins include the US dollar-pegged USDC, Dai, Ethena, USDe, PayPal USD, and USD1, the coin issued by the Trump family-backed DeFi project World Liberty Financial.