Goldman, Citi Among Banks Committing $270M to Fund Joint Stablecoin Issuer for Five Years

Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are among the banks that have committed about $270 million to a joint stablecoin company, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Banco Santander and Deutsche Bank have also joined, according to people familiar with the matter. That money is meant to cover five years of operations at the new company, which will issue a dollar-denominated stablecoin and is expected to be incorporated in the US, the sources said.

Participants call the initiative Project Faro. The project is still searching for a chief executive, and its final name remains under discussion. Goldman and Citi referred questions to a project spokesperson, who declined to comment.

Ten Founders Became 21

Project Faro dates back to October 10, 2025, when ten banks said they were jointly exploring a 1:1 reserve-backed form of digital money on public blockchains, focused on G7 currencies. Barclays and BNP Paribas were in that group, alongside the four banks Bloomberg named.

On September 1, the group expanded to 21 institutions and committed to set up a company in the second half of 2026, subject to closing conditions. The new members included Wells Fargo, Fidelity Investments, Lloyds Banking Group and Standard Bank. Barclays and BNP Paribas were not on the September list.

The consortium plans a dollar token first, with a market launch targeted for the first half of 2027. After that, the group’s priority is a euro version. The group said the product will serve wholesale, institutional, and retail markets, including cross-border payments and digital asset settlement. It intends to comply with the US GENIUS Act and the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules, where they apply.

Banks Back Competing Projects

Bank of America, Citi, and Wells Fargo also back a separate blockchain payment effort. Those three banks were building a tokenized deposit network called The Bridge through the Clearing House, the Wall Street Journal reported in June. The report put that network’s launch in the first half of 2027.

European banks run a separate euro project through Qivalis, an Amsterdam company backed by 37 banks across 15 countries. On October 14, Qivalis said the Dutch central bank had authorized it as an electronic money institution.

New entrants have struggled to dent the lead of Tether and Circle, Bloomberg noted. Tether’s USDT has about $176 billion in circulation, according to DefiLlama. Circle’s USDC is second at about $70 billion. All dollar-pegged stablecoins tracked by DefiLlama total about $293 billion.