DNB confirms to Kaupr that the bank has been in dialogue for a long time with the promoters behind the new Euro stablecoin consortium, but chose not “to join this initial round”. The bank will nevertheless continue its dialogue with the banking consortium.
It was on Thursday that nine banks, including Swedish SEB and Danske Bank, walked out and anosed that they had joined forces to launch a Micar-compatible stablecoin denominated in euros. The banking consortium's aim is for the new euro stablecoin to become a recognised European payment standard.
The nine banks in the consortium are SEB, ING, Banca Sella, KBC, Danske Bank, DekaBank, UniCredit, CaixaBank and Raiffeisen Bank International.
Kaupr has received some conflicting information about how strongly inside the process DNB has been. Expressions such as DNB having “pulled out” have been used by several sources, while DNB claims that they have been neither “in” nor “out”.
This is the official comment from Per Kristian Næss-Fladset, Executive Vice President of Products, Data & Innovation at DNB:
“We know very well the banking consortium behind the new venture, and we have also been in dialogue with them throughout the process. This is an exciting area that has accelerated particularly over the past year, and we are following the development of stablecoins in both usd and euro with interest. Customer interest in this in our primary markets has so far been low, but that could quickly turn around. As of now, we do not have specific plans to participate, but we are actively working to explore and assess which positions in the market we should take and, if so, when”.
DNB will continue to hold an open dialogue with the consortium, and also does not rule out that it may join a later round. However, from what Kaupr understands, this would like to happen on terms and agreements that the nine “founding banks” have already established. Also, the banking consortium is keeping the door open for new banks to join along the way. But it can also be difficult to jump on a speeding train.
We emphasize that Kaupr as the editorial board has no separate stance on the new stablecoin initiative. Maybe it will succeed, maybe not, maybe other strategies will turn out so smart. Kaupr's mission is to report the news and provide you as a reader with insights, as best as we can continuously verify through journalistic methods.
