Stablecoins in Europe

The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) governs stablecoins across all 27 member states under a single set of rules, without the word "stablecoin" itself: a token that tracks one official currency is an e-money token, and a token tracking a basket of assets is an asset-referenced token. Under Article 48, only a bank or a licensed e-money institution may issue an e-money token, and at least 30 percent of the reserve behind it must sit as bank deposits. A license from any one national supervisor, such as Germany's BaFin or France's ACPR, lets the issuer sell the token across the whole union under MiCA's single-license principle, the same passporting logic that applies to a payment institution license.

AllUnity, a company founded by DWS, Flow Traders and Galaxy, issues EURAU from Frankfurt under a BaFin e-money institution license, the first fully reserved euro stablecoin built to MiCA's e-money token rules. On the dollar side, Circle was the first global stablecoin issuer to comply with MiCA, licensed as an e-money institution by the French ACPR, and issues both USDC and its euro coin EURC from that license. See stablecoins in Germany for how EURAU's license and reserve model work in detail.

Ten major European banks, among them BNP Paribas, ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank, Danske Bank and KBC, formed a joint venture called Qivalis, based in Amsterdam, to issue a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin under a license from De Nederlandsche Bank. The consortium's own goal, according to CaixaBank, is a 24/7 payment and settlement token that reduces European reliance on dollar-denominated stablecoins, which still make up the large majority of the roughly 300 billion dollar global stablecoin market. Where AllUnity and Circle each built their token around one company's balance sheet, Qivalis is designed from the start as shared bank infrastructure, closer in spirit to how SEPA itself was built.

A European treasury team today compares a euro stablecoin against an instant SEPA transfer for the same cross-border payment, weighing settlement speed against the operational cost of holding crypto-asset custody. A bank decides whether to custody stablecoins for clients itself, build toward a consortium token like Qivalis, or wait and route the business to a specialist partner. Compliance teams add MiCA's e-money token rules to a list that already includes the EU's travel rule for crypto transfers and the Digital Operational Resilience Act. Asset managers ask whether a euro stablecoin belongs in a fund's cash sleeve next to money market instruments, a question MiCA's clear legal status for e-money tokens made possible to ask at all.

Finance Loop is the meeting place for people who work on stablecoins, digital euro and other digital money across Europe. It connects the finance, IT and AI communities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with events in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg.

Finance Loop is a strategic partner of the Digital Euro Association, whose Digital Euro Conference puts stablecoins on the agenda next to the digital euro, and supported the Bybit EU x Circle Roadshow in Frankfurt, where two panels covered stablecoins, USDC and EURC. The euro stablecoin issuer AllUnity hosts Capital & Code in Frankfurt, where Finance Loop is a media partner of Capital & Code 2026, and AllUnity spoke on payments in DLT-based markets at the Frankfurt Forum on Digital Assets and Applications. Stablecoins are also on the program of other conferences Finance Loop has partnered with: the London Blockchain Finance Summit at Canary Wharf, the European Blockchain Convention 2026 in Barcelona and CONF3RENCE 2026 in Dortmund. With Venturebloxx, Finance Loop wrote reports on stablecoins in global B2B payments and on the future of money in Europe. Related pages: stablecoins in Germany, stablecoins in Frankfurt and payments in Europe.

Yes. Ten major European banks, including BNP Paribas, ING and UniCredit, formed a joint venture named Qivalis to issue a shared MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin, licensed by De Nederlandsche Bank. It sits alongside single-issuer euro tokens such as AllUnity's EURAU from Frankfurt.

Under MiCA, only a credit institution or an e-money institution licensed by a national supervisor, such as BaFin in Germany or the ACPR in France, may issue an e-money token backed by the euro or another official currency. The issuer needs at least EUR 350,000 in initial capital and must hold at least 30 percent of the reserve as bank deposits, and the license is valid across every EU member state.

Yes. Dollar-denominated tokens make up the large majority of the global stablecoin market, which is one reason European banks formed the Qivalis consortium and why AllUnity built EURAU: to give European treasuries and asset managers a euro-denominated alternative issued under EU supervision, not a US dollar token.