Speaking via pre-recorded address at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 (April 15 to 16, Carrousel du Louvre), Lescure said the volume of euro-indexed stablecoins relative to dollar-indexed ones was "unsatisfactory" and urged eurozone banks to develop stablecoin products, also identifying tokenised deposit products as a complementary instrument.

His comments came as the global stablecoin market, now dominated by US dollar tokens worth more than $300 billion in total, continues to expand with little meaningful euro competition.

The numbers illustrate the imbalance plainly. Tether's USDT alone carries a market cap near $184 billion, and Circle's USDC sits at approximately $74.5 billion. Euro stablecoins, by contrast, total around 450 million euros across all issuers, representing less than 0.2 percent of the global stablecoin supply. The largest euro stablecoin by market share is Circle's EURC, which commands roughly 62 percent of that small pool following its early authorisation under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, granted in France.

Société Générale's EUR CoinVertible (EURCV), launched in 2023 and now available on Ethereum, Solana, the XRP Ledger, and Stellar, held approximately 107 million euros in circulation as of the conference, a figure that highlights how far the euro stablecoin ecosystem still has to grow. In a sign of the broader competitive pressures at play, Société Générale also launched USDCV, a dollar-pegged stablecoin, in March 2026, even as it continues to develop its euro offering.

President Emmanuel Macron, reported to be the first sitting G7 head of state to address an institutional blockchain conference, appeared at the same event and called on Europe to "strengthen the international role of the euro through the development of euro stablecoins and the introduction of a digital euro."

Lescure singled out Qivalis as the type of initiative Europe needs. "This is what we need and this is what we want," he said of the consortium, which incorporated in Amsterdam under that name after starting as a 10-bank group and has since added BNP Paribas and BBVA to bring membership to 12.

Other founding banks include ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank, Danske Bank, DekaBank, KBC, Raiffeisen Bank International, SEB, and Banca Sella.

Qivalis has submitted an e-money institution licence application to De Nederlandsche Bank and is targeting a second-half 2026 launch, pending regulatory approval. The entity will operate on a non-profit, cost-recovery basis and hold reserves with at least 40 percent in bank deposits and the remainder in high-rated short-term eurozone sovereign bonds.

Jan-Oliver Sell, formerly managing director at Coinbase Germany, leads the organisation as CEO. Floris Lugt, previously head of digital assets at ING, serves as CFO, and Sir Howard Davies, former chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority, serves as non-executive chairman, a appointment that speaks to the consortium's regulatory credibility.

The urgency behind Lescure's call extends beyond internal European competition. The US GENIUS Act, passed in July 2025, formalised the regulatory framework for dollar stablecoins and was described by analysts as designed to cement dollar dominance in digital payments globally.

In economies such as Nigeria, Argentina, and Turkey, populations facing high inflation have already adopted USD stablecoins as informal savings tools, a pattern IMF and ECB economists describe as digital dollarisation.

European policymakers have signalled concern that, absent a credible euro alternative, this dynamic will deepen as stablecoin use grows worldwide.

For users and developers outside the United States and Europe, the stakes are practical as well as political. Remittance costs to sub-Saharan Africa average 7.7 percent through traditional channels, and to South Asia around 6.2 percent, both well above the UN's 3 percent target. Dollar stablecoin rails have reduced those costs sharply in some corridors, with fees on certain USD stablecoin routes reported below 1 percent, but they also route settlement through US dollar infrastructure by default. Countries in North, West, and East Africa, where the EU is a primary trading partner, could benefit from a liquid euro stablecoin that removes the local currency to dollar to euro conversion step in trade finance and B2B cross-border payments.

EURCV's existing deployment on the Stellar network, which has an established presence in African remittance and microtransaction markets, offers an early integration point. South Asian developers active in DeFi could also find opportunities building liquidity pools, yield vaults, and payment routing tools for Europe-facing corridors as the euro stablecoin market grows. India alone receives more than $120 billion in remittances annually, the largest inflow of any single country in the world, and Gulf-to-UK and South Asia-to-Europe corridors are among the most likely early candidates for euro stablecoin routing. Realising these opportunities will depend on progress in last-mile infrastructure, however, as local exchange liquidity and off-ramp availability remain thin across most of Africa and South Asia.

The MiCA framework, approaching its July 1, 2026 full compliance deadline, has already reshaped the euro stablecoin market by pushing out non-compliant issuers and creating a clearer path for licensed entrants. Tokens such as EURT and EURA saw significant market share losses as platforms delisted them under regulatory pressure.

The European Central Bank is running its own parallel process: a digital euro project with legislation expected in 2026 and potential issuance around 2029, alongside Pontes, an infrastructure bridge connecting distributed ledger platforms to Eurosystem payment rails, scheduled for Q3 2026. The ECB has also unveiled Appia, a long-term tokenised financial markets framework, as part of its broader digital finance agenda.

Whether Qivalis can secure its licence, build exchange liquidity, and reach a scale that materially shifts the euro stablecoin's share of the global market will be one of the more consequential tests for EU financial technology policy in the second half of this year. The consortium is already reported to be in discussions with unnamed crypto exchanges to establish the liquidity foundations a viable euro stablecoin will require.