Fintech giant Fiserv is making a crypto play, unveiling plans for a digital asset platform, including a stablecoin for financial institutions.
Recent US action towards stablecoin regulation has seen banks up their interest in such coins. In May, the Wall Street Journal reported that JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo have held discussions on potentially launching a stablecoin, while Santander is reportedly exploring its own effort.
Fiserv is now offering to help banks make the move. Using stablecoin infrastructure from Paxos and Circle, FIUSD is being pitched as a bank-friendly coin, offering clients an efficient and interoperable digital asset service for their banking and payment flows.
Offering FIUSD across the company’s global multi-sided network - which includes relationships with 10,000 financial institution clients and six million merchant locations processing 90 billion transactions annually - will provide instant scale for the coin, says Fiserv.
Set to arrive by the end of the year, FIUSD will be offered through existing Fiserv technology at no additional cost to clients and be interoperable with other stablecoins, with a deal already in place with PayPal for its PYUSD.
Fiserv say it is also exploring the use of deposit tokens to maintain the benefits of stablecoins in a more capital-friendly structure for banks.
Takis Georgakopoulos, COO, Fiserv, says: “With our scale, reach, and technology leadership, Fiserv is uniquely positioned to advance stablecoin-powered payments and help democratize access to blockchain financial services.