Qivalis Reaches 37 Banks and DNB E-Money License as Ripple Custody Spreads

De Nederlandsche Bank authorized the Amsterdam-based banking consortium Qivalis as an Electronic Money Institution on October 14, clearing the path for the group to issue euro-denominated electronic money tokens under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation. The authorization, announced by Qivalis, remains conditional on remaining requirements, including publication of its white paper.

The consortium's scale is the other half of the story. Qivalis, established in 2025, expanded to 37 member institutions in May 2026 after adding 25 new members. The roster includes BNP Paribas, ING, UniCredit, BBVA, DZ BANK, ABN AMRO and Rabobank, spanning institutions across 15 European countries. For context, a 37-bank consortium covering 15 jurisdictions represents one of the broadest coordinated institutional efforts to build tokenized money inside the eurozone to date.

The initiative follows earlier European experiments with tokenized money, including Société Générale–FORGE's euro stablecoin issued on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). Qivalis has not confirmed whether its own stablecoin will operate on XRPL, and a commercial launch remains pending.

What does the DNB license actually change?

The Electronic Money Institution authorization is the regulatory gateway Qivalis needed to issue e-money tokens — the MiCA category covering fiat-referenced stablecoins — to the market. Before this approval, the consortium could build infrastructure and recruit members but could not lawfully put a euro token into circulation. The remaining conditions, chiefly the white paper publication that MiCA mandates, are procedural rather than structural. Once satisfied, Qivalis can move from consortium to issuer.

For member banks, the license converts an exploratory project into a deployable settlement instrument. Regulated euro tokens would let institutions move funds across blockchain networks while satisfying compliance requirements under MiCA, rather than relying on intrabank pilots or offshore stablecoins that sit awkwardly within European prudential frameworks.

Ripple's custody footprint widens

In parallel, Ripple's European banking presence has expanded through direct institutional relationships. Germany's DZ BANK uses Ripple Custody infrastructure for digital securities, while Spain's BBVA has adopted the technology to support cryptocurrency custody. These are operational deployments, not pilots on paper.

Ripple has also advanced its own European regulatory positioning, including MiCA licensing progress in Luxembourg to support its cross-border payment services. Outside Europe, BNY added XRP custody alongside support for RLUSD, Ripple's US dollar stablecoin, in October.

There is a critical distinction practitioners should keep in view: custody adoption is not payment settlement. Banks can deploy Ripple's infrastructure end to end without purchasing XRP. Access to institutional custody of an asset does not, by itself, translate into new purchases of that asset.

Does any of this generate XRP demand?

This is the practical question the announcement forces. Regulated stablecoins may create opportunities for Ripple's payments, custody and tokenization businesses, and the company has already expanded institutional stablecoin capability through RLUSD banking integrations that combine automated issuance and redemption with traditional banking services.

But neither growing RLUSD adoption nor Qivalis' expansion guarantees incremental XRP buying. Financial institutions can use stablecoins and custody services without holding XRP as a reserve asset or using it for transaction settlement. The same logic applies to institutional XRP custody at BNY: infrastructure access does not necessarily produce new demand.

What the two developments do establish is demand for regulated custody technology itself. Banks are increasingly layering digital asset settlement alongside existing payment networks, and vendors that can pair MiCA-compliant licensing with production custody infrastructure — as Ripple has done in Luxembourg and through DZ BANK and BBVA — are capturing that build-out.

The next marker to watch is Qivalis' white paper publication, the final stated condition attached to its DNB authorization. Once that document lands, the consortium's token standard, chain selection and distribution model become public, and Europe's largest bank-led stablecoin project moves from authorization to launch sequencing.