Minnesota credit union is launching its own stablecoin | PaymentsSource

• Key Insight: A credit union is launching its own white-label stablecoin later this year to retain member deposits.
• Supporting Data: 22% of surveyed St. Cloud Financial Credit Union members are already engaged or interested in digital assets.
• Forward Look: Expect core‑integrated digital vaults and institutional stablecoins to scale after GENIUS Act clarity.
• Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review.

St. Cloud Financial Credit Union is issuing its own white-label stablecoin by the end of this year.
The Minnesota-based credit union is working with distributed ledger technology company Metallicus and DaLand CUSO to issue a “Cloud Dollar” stablecoin as part of a larger-scale digital asset vault launch in Q4 2025. The company asserts that its upcoming stablecoin will be the first credit-union-issued stablecoin in the U.S.

“Our decision to launch a white-label stablecoin is adding to our arsenal of the use cases we have the ability to offer as the digital asset industry continues to emerge,” Jed Meyer, CEO of St. Cloud Financial, told American Banker. “We believe it’s going to emerge faster than most are expecting it to.”

Credit union interest in distributed ledger technology has varied over the years, with some expressing interest but all awaiting regulatory clarity. The passing of the GENIUS Act in July of this year gave financial institutions regulatory guidelines for stablecoins as a use case for the technology.

“The only global use case with significant demand when it comes to blockchain is faster and cheaper money movement,” Jon Ungerland, chief information and innovation officer at DaLand, told American Banker. “For us, the ‘blockchain-mania’ of a few years ago was always going to lead to the evolution of money. We know that consumers and institutions, merchants, corporations, governments, are all going to move to new forms of streaming money.”

The credit union will be opening its Digital Asset Vault to members in late 2025, before the Cloud Dollar stablecoin is launched. Meyer said that the credit union’s digital vault will initially support three digital assets — Bitcoin, USDC and Ethereum— and add its in-house stablecoin shortly afterward.

“At the end of the day, I expect to have Bitcoin accounts sitting next to savings accounts for our members that they’ll see, just like any other account that they have,” Meyer said. “I believe that will ultimately be where we’ll be before the end of next year.”

“We’ll probably [support] about seven or eight [types of digital assets] as we continue to expand over the next few years, depending on regulation,” Meyer continued. “After four years of surveys with our members, about 22% of our members right now are in the digital asset space or want to be in this space, and it’s not even mainstream yet. Having those abilities will allow us to really stay at the front end of meeting our members where they’re at.”

The stablecoin, labeled as $CLDUSD, will be launched through DaLand’s Coin2Core software product, which currently integrates with St. Cloud’s core banking systems for posting, reconciliation and reporting. St. Cloud Financial is the largest shareholder of DaLand, a credit union service organization also owned by two other credit unions and a handful of private investors, according to Meyer.

The stablecoin will be issued via Metallicus’ Metal Blockchain product.

“Outside crypto platforms are pulling deposits and activity away from community institutions,” said Marshall Hayner, CEO of Metallicus. “By issuing $CLDUSD on a compliance-first foundation and connecting it to its core, St. Cloud makes stablecoins useful on day one: regulated, member-facing and compatible with existing banking rails.”

Metallicus launched a stablecoin pilot program in June of this year, which St. Cloud Financial joined, but the credit union had its own processes in the works with Metallicus since the beginning of this year.

“St. Cloud’s path has been different from our traditional Stablecoin Pilot Program members,” Metallicus director of marketing Will Cleaver told American Banker. “Metallicus, St. Cloud and DaLand CUSO together have been exploring ways to collaborate for well over a year. Both DaLand and the St. Cloud team already have a strong understanding of blockchain and digital assets, and are frequent advocates.”

“This milestone is the natural progression of the digital asset vault strategy SCFCU has been advancing with DaLand over the past four years,” said Chase Larson, St. Cloud Financial’s chief lending officer. “The core-integrated platform ensures members can securely vault approved digital assets. Our strategic approach supports multiple use cases and gives us the flexibility to evolve as member and market needs change.”

J.W. Verret, associate professor of law at George Mason Law School, believes there shouldn’t be any major barriers to entry for smaller financial institutions that want to start issuing their own stablecoins.

“Community banks and credit unions have deeper loyalty relationships with their customers than mega-banks,” Verret told American Banker. “They can be a trusted onboarding partner for this new technology that some of their customers don’t know or don’t trust yet.”