A group of global banks building a joint stablecoin has committed around $270 million to fund the venture as it moves from blueprint to buildout, Decrypt reported in an article published November 11, 2026. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Banco Santander, and Deutsche Bank are among the institutions backing the effort, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The capital is meant to cover five years of operations for a planned U.S.-incorporated company that will issue a dollar-denominated stablecoin. Participants know the venture as Project Faro. It is still searching for a chief executive, and its final name remains under discussion.
A spokesperson for the project declined to comment, as did Santander and Deutsche Bank. Goldman and Citi referred questions to the project.
From an October 2025 exploration to a wider consortium
The funding is described as the concrete next step for an initiative that first went public late last year. As Decrypt previously reported, 21 of the world’s largest financial institutions committed in September to form a company to issue a U.S. dollar stablecoin, targeting a launch in the first half of 2027, with a euro version and other currencies to follow.
That consortium had more than doubled from an initial group of 10 banks that began exploring the idea in October 2025. It now spans North America, Europe, East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
Beyond the four institutions named by Bloomberg, participants cited in the reporting include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Fidelity Investments, PNC, Capital One, TD Bank, UBS, BBVA, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, and MUFG, among others. JPMorgan is not on the list.
Other bank and payments efforts, and the incumbents
Decrypt framed the venture as one of several collaborative pushes by established finance into a business long dominated by crypto-native players. Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe are among more than 100 companies backing the issuer Open Standard, while European banks have formed Qivalis to issue a euro-denominated coin.
At the time of the report, Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC together accounted for about 85% of a market worth roughly $290 billion, nearly all of it dollar-pegged. When the bank consortium first went public in September, Circle’s stock fell about 6% as investors priced in the prospect of bank-backed competition for USDC.
The reporting says the banks are betting that institutional trust, regulatory alignment, and existing client networks can win them a share of a settlement business that promises round-the-clock, cross-border payments at lower cost than traditional rails.
What the token is meant to do, and what is still open
The token is being designed to comply with the U.S. GENIUS Act, which created the first federal framework for dollar-pegged tokens in 2025, and, where applicable, the EU’s MiCA regime. The group has said it wants the stablecoin used across wholesale, institutional, and retail markets.
Project Faro remains pre-launch: no issued token, no named CEO, and no final name. The first-half 2027 target leaves room for delay. Decrypt presented the roughly $270 million commitment as a shift and a concrete signal that the consortium intends to compete for the onchain dollar rather than leave it to crypto-native issuers.
Who will lead the company, what it will ultimately be called, and whether the 2027 timing holds were still unresolved in the report. The project declined to comment, and several named banks either declined or referred questions back to the project.
Original article: Goldman, Citi and Global Banks Commit $270 Million to Challenge Crypto’s Stablecoin Giants (Decrypt, published November 11, 2026).
