37 banks, 15 countries, one euro stablecoin: Qivalis wins the Dutch licence it needs and says issuance comes "within the next months"

Europe's banks have cleared the biggest regulatory hurdle on the way to a euro stablecoin of their own. Qivalis B.V., the Amsterdam company set up by a consortium that now counts 37 banks in 15 countries, said on Wednesday that De Nederlandsche Bank has authorised it as an electronic money institution and placed it under the central bank's ongoing supervision. Under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, that is the status an issuer needs before it can sell euro-denominated electronic money tokens to the public.

The company says it plans to begin issuing "within the next months", once it meets MiCA's remaining requirements and publishes a white paper. For now it issues no e-money and offers no payment services. The token will be fully reserved, with each unit backed by an equal amount of reserve assets, and distributed through banks, exchanges, payment firms and market infrastructure rather than sold directly to consumers. Its name, ticker, blockchain and reserve custodians have not been announced, The Crypto Times noted.

The consortium started with nine banks in September 2025, among them ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank, Danske Bank, KBC, Raiffeisen Bank International, SEB, DekaBank and Banca Sella, and later added BNP Paribas, DZ Bank, BBVA and, in May, 25 more lenders including ABN AMRO, Rabobank, Intesa Sanpaolo and Nordea, according to the outlet. Its supervisory board is chaired by Sir Howard Davies, the former chairman of NatWest Group and of the UK Financial Services Authority. Chief executive Jan-Oliver Sell framed the project as a sovereignty question, saying Europe should have an on-chain euro settlement asset issued under European law.

The timetable has slipped a little. When the brand was announced in December 2025, the member banks said the euro stablecoin would launch in the second half of 2026; the new release gives no date beyond "within the next months", The Crypto Times reported. One reason may be the rulebook itself: MiCA requires e-money token issuers to hold part of their reserves as bank deposits, and on September 22 the European Central Bank and the national central banks proposed replacing those deposit quotas with liquidity-based rules, according to the outlet. The white paper, and the choice of blockchain, are the next things to watch.