Spanish banking joins en masse the fight for digital money

BarcelonaSpanish banking has opted en masse for private digital money (stablecoin) linked to the euro. Banc Sabadell, Bankinter, Abanca, Kutxabank and Cecabank have joined the private consortium Qivalis, based in the Netherlands, as reported by ARA, and which also includes CaixaBank and BBVA. In this way, Spanish banking is the one with the most representatives in this society that began at the end of last year with 10 financial entities, which later increased to 12 and now number 37, with a presence in 15 countries.

In addition to the Spanish ones, there are four from Italy (Sella, Intesa San Paolo, BPER and Unicredit), three from France (Banque Fédérative-Crédit Mutuel, BNP Paribas and Groupe BPCE), three from Germany (Deka, DZ Bank and Hellaba), three from the Netherlands (ABN-Amro, ING and Rabobank), two from Denmark (Danske Bank and Jyske Bank), two from Ireland (AIB and Bank of Ireland), two from Greece (National Bank of Greece and Piraeus), two from Finland (Nordea and OP Pohjola), three from Sweden (Handelsbanken, SEB and Swed Bank), one from Poland (Bank Pekao), one from Belgium (KBC), one from Luxembourg (Spuerkees), one from Iceland (Landsbankinn) and two from Austria (Erste Group and Raffeissen Bank).

Among the large Spanish banks, Santander is currently betting on another alliance with large financial entities such as Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, MUFG Bank, TD Bank Group, and UBS. In this case, digital money would be linked to currencies of the richest countries (G-7), such as the euro, but also the dollar or the yen.

This banking offensive is aimed at taking positions to adapt to the digitalization of payment methods, which until now has been dominated by the United States and, therefore, by the dollar, and which has begun to worry regulators. This has been stated by both the European Central Bank (ECB), which is preparing to launch the digital euro – an equivalent to banknotes and coins, but in the digital world – in 2029, and by the Bank of Spain. With the digital euro, more designed for everyday payments, the debtor will be the ECB, which has the capacity to issue currency and cannot go bankrupt. With stablecoins, a private entity may have liquidity problems, although the most reliable ones are subject to European regulation on crypto-assets (MiCA).