Banks Commit $270M to Project Faro for 2027 Stablecoin Launch

Twenty-one financial institutions have committed about $270 million to Project Faro, backed by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and BBVA, which plans a U.S. dollar stablecoin launch in the first half of 2027, Bloomberg reported.

The funding is earmarked for five years of operations. Faro aims to issue stablecoins pegged to all seven Group of Seven currencies, starting with the dollar and following with a euro-backed coin.

The consortium first announced the initiative in September. Bloomberg reported that people familiar with the matter expect the new company to be incorporated in the United States, while confirmed details remain limited.

Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Banco Santander, Deutsche Bank and BBVA are among the 21 members. Bank of America is also part of the group. Their existing customer, payment and commercial relationships form a potential distribution base for the project.

Banks spread across competing projects

BBVA belongs to Faro and to two competing initiatives, Open USD and Qivalis. Stripe leads Open USD, and Visa counts as one of its founding partners. The Open Standard consortium is bringing together payment providers, banks, financial technology companies and merchants around shared stablecoin infrastructure.

Dutch lender Rabobank is another member of both Faro and Qivalis. It joined Qivalis in May, when the euro consortium added 25 banks and expanded to 37 members. BNP Paribas joined the 10 banks that first explored what became Faro in October 2025 and later joined Qivalis.

The overlap lets banks test different issuance and distribution models without committing exclusively to one stablecoin project. It also lets them retain a stake in infrastructure that could support future payment and settlement systems.

Qivalis is a European banking consortium seeking to challenge the dominance of U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins. It has moved further ahead on regulation. In October 2026, De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank, authorized it as an electronic money institution, while Faro's operating details remain limited. The consortium is preparing a fully regulated, euro-denominated stablecoin for payments, cross-border settlements and tokenized asset transactions.

Distribution meets a concentrated market

Faro enters a market dominated by two crypto-native issuers. As of Nov. 10, USDT and USDC together represented about 85% of the roughly $290 billion stablecoin market, according to DefiLlama, leaving Tether and Circle with most of the measured supply.

USDT had a market capitalization of approximately $176.3 billion, while USDC accounted for around $70.4 billion. These figures make distribution central to Faro's competitive case.

Faro's members already have banking customers, payment networks and relationships with businesses and financial institutions. Those channels could introduce the dollar token to new audiences, including retail users, without requiring the consortium to build an entirely new customer base.

Open USD is pursuing a similar approach through its coalition of banks and nonbank companies.

What does this change for stablecoin users?

For now, it changes the market structure around stablecoins more than the user experience. Banks are committing capital and distribution channels to several competing projects, while USDT and USDC held about 85% as of Nov. 10. Faro has not launched a token, and its planned U.S. incorporation remains an expectation rather than a confirmed detail.

The answer depends on whether bank-backed distribution can convert existing infrastructure and customer relationships into a competitive onchain payment network that reaches retail users and supports payment and settlement activity. Faro's five-year funding runway gives the consortium time to build and test that proposition.

Faro says the euro-backed coin and other G7 currencies will follow the dollar. The next hard checkpoint is the first half of 2027, when the venture must turn its funding, incorporation plan and G7 currency ambition into a functioning dollar token.