“If we don’t have a euro on the blockchain, banks will use the dollar because it’s there, it’s available and it’s very liquid,” Sell told CoinDesk. Instead of each bank issuing its own euro stablecoin, Qivalis encourages them to work together on a single shared network.
Sell said that Qivalis is not trying to compete directly with USDC. It aims to provide European banks, businesses and payments companies with an alternative to the regulated euro as tokenized finance expands. That would allow institutions to settle in euros instead of converting assets into dollars and vice versa.
As more banks join, the consortium also benefits from the same network effects that drive USDC adoption. “The more banks we have in the consortium, the better. Our network has stronger network effects,” Sell said.
Invest in infrastructure
Agant’s MacKenzie said he sees the same trend emerging in the United Kingdom.
Banks are no longer solely focused on digital assets, he said. Instead, they are investing in the infrastructure necessary to connect stablecoins with traditional financing for payments, treasury operations and settlement. Companies generally prefer to settle their obligations in their own currencies, he said, rather than converting them to U.S. dollars first.
That may be the impetus to introduce non-dollar stablecoins, such as Societe Generale’s EUR CoinVertible (EURCV), Credit Agricole’s EURXT, and Qivalis’ impending offering. But existing is insufficient. How the bank rolls out the stablecoin to its customers will determine its success.
