Wall Street puts $270M behind Faro—now Tether and Circle have a bank on the line

A consortium of 21 global financial institutions has committed approximately $270 million to a joint U.S. stablecoin venture known internally as Project Faro, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Banco Santander and Deutsche Bank are among the banks backing the project, which is expected to be incorporated in the United States.

The funding is intended to cover five years of operations for the planned company, with a U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin targeted for launch in the first half of 2027. A euro-denominated version and other currencies are planned to follow. The project is still searching for a chief executive, and its final company name has not been decided. A spokesperson for the project declined to comment, while Goldman and Citi referred questions to the venture; Santander and Deutsche Bank also declined to comment.

The consortium includes Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Fidelity Investments, PNC, Capital One, TD Bank, UBS, BBVA, Lloyds Banking Group and MUFG, among others. JPMorgan is not participating. The group is designing the token to comply with the U.S. GENIUS Act and is also targeting Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules. The initiative first went public in September, when the 21-member group said it would form a company to issue a dollar stablecoin, with cross-border payments and digital asset settlement among its intended uses.

Project Faro would enter a market in which Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC account for about 85% of a roughly $290 billion stablecoin market, nearly all of it dollar-pegged. Circle’s stock fell about 6% when the bank consortium announced its plans in September. Shares dropped 5% on June 30 after Bloomberg reported on Open USD, a rival backed by Visa, Stripe and more than 100 companies, and another 4% on August 26 after The Wall Street Journal reported the bank group’s plans. European banks have separately formed Qivalis to issue a euro-denominated coin.

Circle generated $865 million in revenue and reserve income in the third quarter, when its reserves returned 3.5% on average USDC circulation of $73.3 billion. “In Q3, we saw continued proof that institutions are building and expanding on USDC,” Chief Executive Jeremy Allaire said in the company’s earnings release. The $270 million commitment works out to about $54 million a year, while Project Faro has yet to name its chief executive, finalize its company name or launch a product.