EU banks plan stablecoin; Ripple gets permission to expand in Singapore | PaymentsSource

• Key insights: A group of European banks are teaming to issue a euro-backed stablecoin. 
• What’s at stake: Most current stablecoins are U.S. dollar-backed, creating pressure on banks in other countries to offer a local alternative. 
• Forward Look: The stablecoin is expected to launch in 2026. 

While U.S. dollars have been the primary reserve backing most stablecoins, there are efforts in other countries to diversify the supporting assets. 

A group of European banks this week advanced work on a euro-backed stablecoin. The initiative, called Qivalis, includes Banca Sella, BNP Paribas, CaixaBank, Danske Bank, DekaBank, ING, KBC, Raiffeisen Bank International, SEB and UniCredit.

Qivalis plans to release a stablecoin in early 2026 under the EU’s Regulation on Cryptocurrency Markets, the EU’s equivalent of the GENIUS Act. The banks are also seeking authorization from the Dutch Central Bank. 

The consortium will support real-time cross-border payments and settlements, with the member banks providing custody and other services. Qivalis has hired Jan-Oliver Sell, the former managing director of Coinbase Germany, to lead the project; and former ING digital asset lead Floris Lugt as CFO.

In addition to improving payment processing, Qivalis is arguing a euro-backed stablecoin is necessary for monetary autonomy as digital payments expand, providing European businesses and consumers a way to engage digital assets and blockchain payments in local currency.—John Adams 

Stripe acquires usage-based billing platform Metronome

Stripe has signed a definitive agreement to buy San Francisco-based Metronome, a usage-based billing fintech for an undisclosed amount. 

“I’m excited to announce that Metronome has signed a definitive agreement to join Stripe,” Metronome co-founder and CEO Scott Woody wrote in a blog post Tuesday. “Just as Stripe powers the world’s payments layer, Metronome powers its monetization logic. This partnership connects those two foundations seamlessly.” 

Metered pricing is the native business model for the AI era, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison wrote in a post on X. “As far as we can tell, the associated shift in how businesses generate revenue will be as big as the advent of SaaS. (It may even turn out to be considerably bigger.)” 

Metronome has raised $128 million over four funding rounds, with its most recent $50 million Series C round in February, according to Crunchbase.  

Stripe has been working to expand its offerings as AI becomes more prevalent with payment companies. In October, Stripe teamed with OpenAI to launch Instant Checkout in ChatGPT that allows ChatGPT users in the U.S. to make purchases from U.S.-based Etsy sellers with a pending integration with Shopify. Also in October, Bridge, Stripe’s stablecoin platform, applied for a national trust charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. —Joey Pizzolato

Sony lines up processing partner for its stablecoin

As Sony gets set to join the stablecoin race, it has picked Bastion to provide stablecoin services for Sony Bank and related affiliates.

Bastion, a Campbell, California-based company that sells stablecoin technology, will manage issuance, reserve management and custody for Sony’s U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin. 

Sony Bank intends to use the stablecoin, which is expected to launch in 2026, to improve payment options within the Sony Group ecosystem for internal operations and customer use. This includes Sony Group’s treasury operations and intercompany settlement, in-app digital currency payments for streaming and commerce in the entertainment sector (games, anime, movies and music), and other products. 

Sony’s Innovation Fund recently participated in an investment in Bastion, along with Coinbase Ventures, Samsung NEXT and Hashed. 

“The evolution of our financial system demands the buy-in of major players like Sony Bank to pave the way for innovation and change,” said Nassim Eddequiouaq, CEO of Bastion, in a release.—John Adams  

Brazil’s real-time biometric payments go global

Uruguay-based cross-border payments platform dLocal has enabled Pix with Biometrics, Brazil’s government-backed authentication technology.

The technology enables people to confirm Pix payments with a face or fingerprint scan within a merchant’s checkout system instead of redirecting consumers to their banking app, similar to a card-on-file system. 

DLocal, which connects merchants to consumers in emerging markets, will offer Pix’s biometric option across Brazil and the rest of dLocal’s international network.

Brazil’s central government supervises Pix, which operates a government-mandated real-time payment rail. Pix, which was launched in 2020, has become the world’s second largest instant settlement system after India, sparking a strategy to extend the underlying technology outside of Brazil. 

“Leading in Brazil means staying aligned with the pace of innovation, and Pix with Biometrics is another step in that direction.” said Pedro Arnt, dLocal’s CEO, in a release.—John Adams  

Ripple gets a regulatory break in Singapore

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has approved more payment activities for Ripple Markets APAC, the blockchain company’s local subsidiary. Ripple holds a Major Payment Institution license, and the MAS move enables Ripple to sell payment products to financial institutions and settle payments in RLUSD and XRP. The San Francisco-based Ripple, which has battled U.S. regulators for years, opened an office in Singapore in 2017. It joined other cryptocurrency-affiliated companies Circle and Coinbase that found refuge in Singapore’s early move to regulate cryptocurrency in 2019 and stablecoins in 2023, two years before the GENIUS Act was passed in the U.S. 

 “With this expanded scope of payment activities, we can better support the institutions driving that growth by offering a broad suite of regulated payment services, bringing faster, more efficient payments to our customers,” Fiona Murray, executive vice president of Asia Pacific for Ripple, said in a release.—John Adams  

Mastercard to launch Agent Pay in LatAm, Caribbean in 2026

Mastercard is gearing up to launch Agent Pay, its agentic payments framework, in early 2026 across Latin America and the Caribbean, the company said Wednesday at the Mastercard Innovation Forum in Miami. 

Mastercard Agent Pay uses tokenization technology to verify agents and buyer intent and controls. Nearly 100% of issuers in the region already use Mastercard’s tokenization technology, making it an attractive region to stand up its agentic framework, the company said. 

Bemobi, Checkout.com, Davivienda, Evertec, Getnet, Inti, MagaluPay and Yuno will be some of the first companies to allow agentic payments in the region. 

“Agentic payments mark a new chapter in the evolution of commerce, one where AI empowers people and businesses to do more, with greater simplicity and confidence,” said Guida Sousa, Mastercard’s SVP of digital payments for Latin America and the Caribbean, in a statement. “By joining forces with a robust ecosystem of partners, we are accelerating the region’s digital transformation and ensuring these benefits reach consumers at scale.”

Agentic payments are having a “Field of Dreams” moment as payment companies work to establish frameworks for agent-led commerce. Stripe has partnered with OpenAI to enable agentic payments in ChatGPT and PayPal teamed up with Google. —Joey Pizzolato

Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg

Kraken launches debit card in Europe and the UK

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is rolling out a debit card with cash-back rewards in the United Kingdom and European Union as more crypto companies look to gain a foothold in the rewards card market. 

The Krak Card runs on the Mastercard rails and offers 1% cash back on all purchases and allows consumers to spend using multiple balances. For example, a $100 purchase could be split between an $80 cash payment and a $20 payment using a cryptocurrency such as bitcoin or ether.  

“To us, everything is money,” said Mark Greenberg, global head of consumer at Kraken, in a statement. “You should be able to use whatever assets you hold to pay for everyday goods and services in the digital era we live in.” 

The Krak Card follows Coinbase’s co-branded American Express rewards card, which launched in June. Bread Financial issues the Crypto.com co-branded Mastercard, and cryptocurrency exchange Gemini also offers a co-branded Mastercard with cash-back rewards. —Joey Pizzolato

CHRISTOPHE BOSSET/BLOOMBERG NEWS

AI agents are good at cash and liquidity management: BIS

Generative AI models are fairly adept at managing cash and liquidity in real-time gross settlement payment systems with no special training, according to a Bank of International Settlements working paper. 

Through a prompt-based experiment, BIS simulated real-world payment scenarios with liquidity shocks and competing payment priorities to test the technology’s ability to maintain proper liquidity buffers, prioritize payments under tight constraints, and optimize trade-offs between settlement speed and liquidity. 

The findings suggest that LLMs can replicate key cash-management tasks, BIS said. 

“The AI agent was able to maintain precautionary liquidity buffers, prioritise urgent payments and balance trade-offs between liquidity costs and settlement delays,” according to the BIS. “The agent’s decisions were consistent across various scenarios, demonstrating its ability to adapt to uncertainty and make informed choices.”  —Joey Pizzolato