Santander latest bank to ponder stablecoin play

Finextra

2 days ago

Bank interest in stablecoins continues to gather momentum, with Santander now reportedly looking into launching its own offering.
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Stripe president John Collison told Bloomberg last week that in talks with the payments giant, banks are "very interested" in using stablecoins.
'This is not something that banks are just kind of brushing away or treating as a fad. Banks are very interested in how they should be integrated with stablecoins into their product offerings as well,' says Collison.
Having avoided crypto for years, Stripe recently began letting merchants accept stablecoins for online payments and paid $1.1 billion for stablecoin platform Bridge.
Recently it emerged that US giants JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo have held discussions on potentially launching a stablecoin that will improve transaction speeds whilst managing competition from encroaching crypto firms.
Now, Bloomberg reports that Santander's Openbank unit has applied for Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) licenses in Europe to offer a stablecoin and to give its retail customers access to crypto.
The bank is considering launching its own euro- or dollar-denominated stablecoin or offering access to an existing one. However, the plan is still at the preliminary stages.