A bank-issued stablecoin is a dollar-denominated digital token minted directly by a chartered bank against deposits or segregated reserves it already holds, settled on a public or permissioned blockchain. For years the category was theoretical. The dollar tokens that mattered were issued by non-banks: Circle's USDC and Tether's USDT together account for the large majority of the roughly $300 billion stablecoin supply tracked across chains in early 2026. That changed after July 18, 2025, when the GENIUS Act was signed into law and gave US banks a federal path to issue payment stablecoins under their existing regulators.
​

Less than six months later, on December 18, 2025, SoFi Bank, N.A. launched sofiUSD, the first stablecoin issued by a US nationally-chartered, FDIC-insured bank on a public, permissionless blockchain. JPMorgan had already shipped its JPM Coin deposit token (JPMD) to institutional clients on Coinbase's Base network in November 2025. Citi runs a live token service for corporate cash. The shape of a bank-issued dollar is no longer a forecast. This piece maps which banks have actually shipped, who is still piloting, and what is structurally different about a token minted by a bank versus one minted by Circle or Tether.
​

[IMG BRIEF: Landscape map graphic. Three columns, left to right: "Shipped" (sofiUSD / SoFi Bank N.A., Dec 2025; JPM Coin JPMD / JPMorgan, Nov 2025; Citi Token Services, live), "Piloting" (RLN proof-of-concept: BNY, PNC, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Truist, TD), "Announced / exploring" (bank consortium stablecoin discussions). Each card shows issuer, token type (stablecoin vs deposit token), and chain. Eco wordmark bottom-right as neutral observer. UNAPPROVED TYPE, needs Jay QA before publish.]
​

The label hides a split that matters more than the marketing. Two distinct instruments are getting called "bank stablecoins" in 2026, and they carry different risk, regulation, and redemption mechanics.
​

The first is a payment stablecoin issued by a bank or its subsidiary under the GENIUS Act. These are backed one-to-one by cash and short-term Treasuries, segregated from the bank's general balance sheet, and the holder's claim is on the reserve pool, not on the bank as a depositor. sofiUSD is described by SoFi as backed 1:1 by cash SoFi Bank holds in its own master account at the Federal Reserve, issued by its insured national bank. The GENIUS Act bars any payment stablecoin issuer from paying interest or yield to holders, which is why these tokens behave like cash, not like a savings product.
​

The second is a deposit token: a tokenized claim on an actual bank deposit. JPMorgan's JPMD is the clearest live example. A deposit token represents money already sitting in a depositor's account at the bank, moved onchain as a native token, and it is a direct liability of the bank rather than a claim on a segregated reserve. Because it is a deposit, a deposit token can pay interest and can sit inside existing deposit-insurance and capital frameworks. The Brookings Institution and bank policy teams have spent much of 2025 and 2026 drawing this exact line, and JPMorgan executives have publicly argued that deposit tokens are more capital-efficient than stablecoins for that reason.
​

This is the debate that sits underneath every "bank stablecoin" headline. sofiUSD itself has been described both ways: SoFi markets it as a stablecoin, while analysts at Finovate and elsewhere have questioned whether a 1:1 bank-backed token is closer to a tokenized deposit in substance. The classification is not settled, and the rest of this article treats it as a live spectrum rather than a fixed category. For the full breakdown of where sofiUSD lands, see the sibling explainer on whether sofiUSD is a stablecoin or a tokenized deposit, and the category guide on what a tokenized deposit actually is.
​

Three issuers have moved from announcement to live product as of May 2026. The distinction matters because the GENIUS Act produced a wave of press releases, and shipped is not the same as announced.
​

SoFi Bank, N.A. launched sofiUSD on December 18, 2025. BitGo provides the underlying Stablecoin-as-a-Service infrastructure, handling minting, burning, custody, and embedded compliance, while SoFi Bank remains the issuer of record. sofiUSD launched on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token, with cross-chain expansion planned. The initial institutional rollout included ten firms: Cumberland, Bullish, BitGo, B2C2, Fireblocks, Wintermute, Galaxy, Jupiter, Mesh Payments, and Mastercard.
​

On April 2, 2026, SoFi extended the token into a full enterprise product called Big Business Banking, a single regulated platform where companies hold deposits, move money, and settle in fiat or crypto around the clock, with Solana used for fast, low-cost settlement. A separate Mastercard partnership targets sofiUSD as a settlement option across Mastercard's Multi-Token Network. The structural claim SoFi makes is that the issuer is a chartered FDIC-insured bank, which no non-bank stablecoin issuer can say. For the deeper enterprise breakdown, see the sibling pieces on sofiUSD for business and why SoFi chose Solana for settlement.
​

JPMorgan's Kinexys division ran a JPMD proof-of-concept in June 2025 with B2C2, Coinbase, and Mastercard, then officially rolled out the deposit token to institutional clients on Base on November 12, 2025. In 2026 Kinexys began extending JPMD to the Canton Network as its second deployment, taking a phased approach across the year. JPMD is invite-only, restricted to JPMorgan's vetted institutional clients, which is the defining difference from a permissionless stablecoin. For the side-by-side, see the sibling comparison of sofiUSD vs JPM Coin.
​

Citi runs Citi Token Services for Cash, a deposit-token-style service that lets corporate and institutional clients move money between Citi branches worldwide 24/7, with Mars among the early clients. A second product, Citi Token Services for Trade, remains in pilot. Citi's model is closer to an internal, permissioned network than to a public token, which places it at the institutional-only end of the spectrum alongside JPMD.
​

Most of the large US banks named in 2025 stablecoin coverage have not shipped a token. They are running proofs-of-concept or waiting on final rules. In a 12-week regulated liability network proof-of-concept coordinated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Innovation Center with the Swift network, nine institutions participated: Bank of New York Mellon, Citi, HSBC, Mastercard, PNC Bank, TD Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo. Participation in a shared experiment is not the same as a live, customer-facing token, and none of these banks had publicly launched a standalone stablecoin as of May 2026.
​

Bank of America is frequently cited in search demand for a bank stablecoin, and its leadership has signaled interest publicly, but it had not shipped a token by May 2026. The accurate status for most of the sector is exploration and pilot, gated on the rulemaking timeline. The FDIC approved a notice of proposed rulemaking on April 7, 2026 to implement the GENIUS Act for FDIC-supervised stablecoin issuers and insured depository institutions, and the OCC issued its own proposed rules earlier in 2026. Until those rules are final, many banks are deliberately waiting, and some have asked regulators to slow the implementation timeline.
​

The structural gap between a SoFi or JPMorgan token and a Circle or Tether token comes down to three things: who the issuer is, what backs the token, and who can hold it.
​

On the issuer, USDC is issued by Circle and USDT by Tether, both non-bank companies. Under the GENIUS Act these can continue as permitted payment stablecoin issuers supervised by the OCC or under a qualifying state regime, but they are not chartered banks. A bank-issued stablecoin like sofiUSD comes from an entity that already holds a national charter and FDIC insurance at the institution level, sits inside the federal banking supervision apparatus, and can mint and burn against deposits it controls directly.
​

On backing, payment stablecoins under the GENIUS Act, whether issued by a bank or a non-bank, must hold reserves one-to-one in cash and short-term Treasuries and cannot pay yield to holders. Deposit tokens are different in kind: JPMD is a claim on a bank deposit, so it can carry the economics of a deposit, including interest, and lives inside existing capital rules rather than a separate reserve pool. That is why JPMorgan frames deposit tokens as more capital-efficient than stablecoins.
​

On access, USDC and USDT are permissionless: anyone can create a wallet and hold them. sofiUSD launched on a public, permissionless chain, which puts it closer to the Circle and Tether access model than JPMD is. JPMD and Citi Token Services are walled gardens restricted to vetted institutional clients. So the 2026 landscape is not bank versus non-bank on a single axis. It is a matrix of issuer type, instrument type, and access model.
​

[IMG BRIEF: 2x2 positioning matrix. X-axis: access (permissioned institutional-only to public permissionless). Y-axis: instrument (segregated-reserve stablecoin to deposit-token bank liability). Plot USDC and USDT in public/stablecoin quadrant, sofiUSD straddling public/stablecoin near the deposit boundary, JPMD in institutional/deposit-token quadrant, Citi Token Services in institutional/deposit-token quadrant. UNAPPROVED TYPE, needs Jay QA before publish.]
​

A bank can mint a clean, fully-reserved dollar and still leave the hard problem unsolved. sofiUSD launched on Ethereum and uses Solana for enterprise settlement. USDC and USDT live across more than a dozen chains. JPMD runs on Base and Canton. A treasury team or payments platform holding several of these tokens does not get one dollar standard. It gets a set of dollar tokens that each settle on different networks with different finality, fees, and liquidity.
​

This is where the issuer question hands off to the movement question. The value of a bank-issued stablecoin in a real payment flow depends on whether it can reach the counterparty's chain and token without forcing a manual swap, a centralized off-ramp, or a custodial hop. A bank coin that only settles where its issuer deployed it is a closed loop. The reason multi-chain routing matters for this category is that bank issuers are deliberately conservative about how many chains they support, which concentrates liquidity but fragments reach.
​

Eco's role sits at this layer. Eco is stablecoin-routing infrastructure that moves dollars across chains and tokens so an application can request a settlement and have the underlying token and network abstracted away. For a bank-issued token, that means a sofiUSD or USDC balance on one chain can settle a payment denominated on another without the sender stitching together bridges and swaps by hand. The issuer decides what the dollar is. The routing layer decides whether that dollar can actually arrive where it is needed.
​

The reason banks are issuing at all traces directly to the GENIUS Act. Signed July 18, 2025, after passing the Senate 68-30 and the House 308-122, it restricts payment-stablecoin issuance to three lanes: subsidiaries of insured depository institutions regulated by a federal banking agency, non-bank issuers supervised by the OCC, and qualifying state-chartered entities. It mandates one-to-one reserves in cash and Treasuries, bars interest to holders, and takes full effect on the earlier of 18 months after enactment or 120 days after final regulations.
​

That framework is why a SoFi could ship a token under its existing charter and why deposit tokens like JPMD occupy a separate, deposit-based lane rather than the payment-stablecoin lane. It also explains the pilot-heavy posture of the rest of the sector: with FDIC and OCC rules still in proposed form through spring 2026, many banks are sequencing their launches behind the rulemaking. The contrast with Europe's MiCA regime, which took a different path on reserves and issuer eligibility, is covered in the related MiCA vs GENIUS comparison.
​

sofiUSD, launched by SoFi Bank, N.A. on December 18, 2025, is described as the first stablecoin issued by a US nationally-chartered, FDIC-insured bank on a public, permissionless blockchain. JPMorgan's JPMD deposit token went live to institutional clients on Base on November 12, 2025, but it is classified as a deposit token rather than a payment stablecoin.
​

No. A payment stablecoin is backed one-to-one by segregated cash and Treasuries and cannot pay interest under the GENIUS Act. A deposit token, like JPMD, is a tokenized claim on an actual bank deposit, is a direct liability of the bank, and can carry deposit economics including interest. The classification of any specific token, including sofiUSD, can be debated, which is why the labels are treated as a spectrum.
​

Shipped as of May 2026: SoFi (sofiUSD), JPMorgan (JPMD), and Citi (Citi Token Services for Cash). Piloting or exploring: the nine RLN proof-of-concept institutions including BNY, PNC, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Truist, and TD, plus banks waiting on final FDIC and OCC rules. Bank of America has signaled interest but had not launched a token.
​

The issuer is a chartered, supervised bank rather than a non-bank company, and in the deposit-token case the instrument is a bank liability rather than a reserve-backed token. Access models also differ: sofiUSD launched on a public permissionless chain, while JPMD and Citi's token are restricted to vetted institutional clients.
​

The 2026 picture is a small group of live issuers, a large group of pilots, and a regulatory framework still being written into final rules. SoFi and JPMorgan proved a bank can put a dollar onchain under US law. The open question for anyone building payments is no longer whether bank dollars exist but whether they can move. Eco's routing infrastructure exists to move stablecoins, including bank-issued ones, across chains and tokens so a payment can settle wherever it needs to, without the sender managing the plumbing. To go deeper on the issuer that started the wave, read the pillar guide on how sofiUSD and bank-issued stablecoins are reshaping digital payments.
​