Europe's bank-owned euro stablecoin company gets its Dutch licence, and names no launch date

Qivalis, the Amsterdam company set up by 37 European banks to issue a euro stablecoin, now has the licence it needs to do so. On 14 October it said the Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank, had authorised it as an electronic money institution. That is the licence a firm that is not a bank needs under the European Union's crypto law to issue a token tied to one currency. A stablecoin is a digital token meant to hold a steady value against ordinary money. Qivalis has not issued one yet.

The company says issuance is "planned to begin within the next months". First it must meet the rest of the crypto law, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, and publish a white paper, the disclosure document the law requires for each token. Ledger Insights, a trade publication, reports that the white paper goes to the Dutch central bank, which then has 20 working days to review it. Qivalis's announcements of December 2025 and January 2026 promised a launch in the second half of 2026. Its release of 5 October still spoke of a launch later this year. The new release gives no date, and does not say which blockchain the token will use.

The pitch is about who writes the rules for digital money in Europe. Dollar tokens dominate the market: Tether's USDT alone accounts for $183bn of a $303bn stablecoin market, according to DefiLlama figures cited by Cointelegraph. "Europe's currency deserves Europe's rules - on-chain," said Jan-Oliver Sell, the chief executive. "We believe Europe should have a euro-denominated on-chain settlement asset issued under European law and subject to European regulatory standards."

Qivalis will not sell the token to the public itself. Banks, crypto exchanges, payment companies and the firms that run market infrastructure will hand it on, and the company says it will back the token under a full reserve model. Ledger Insights reports that the reserves will be spread across banks, not necessarily only Qivalis's owners, and that Fireblocks, a crypto technology firm, supplies the infrastructure. It also reports that the Dutch central bank has already licensed three other euro stablecoin issuers, Quantoz Payments, Fiat Republic and Aplauz, but that Qivalis is the first backed by a group of banks.

The licence came quickly. The venture was unveiled in September 2025 with nine founding banks, Ledger Insights notes, and was licensed 13 months later. Its supervisory board is chaired by Sir Howard Davies, a former chairman of NatWest and of the Financial Services Authority, Britain's old financial regulator. Much is still open: the launch date, the blockchain, the size of the first issue and which banks will hold the reserves. Only the crypto trade press has covered it so far. Cointelegraph restates the release; Ledger Insights adds the detail on reserves and review.