The Dutch central bank granted Qivalis an electronic money institution license under the European Union's Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation, enabling the company to offer onchain euro settlement infrastructure backed by 37 banks.
The De Nederlandsche Bank issued the license on October 13, with the announcement made public October 14. Qivalis, which counts BBVA, BNP Paribas and ING among its backers, becomes the first entity to receive MiCA-compliant authorization for euro token issuance in the Netherlands. The approval establishes a regulatory pathway for commercial banks to settle transactions on distributed ledger networks using a tokenized version of the bloc's currency.
MiCA, which took effect in December 2023, created a unified framework for digital asset issuers across the EU. E-money institutions operating under the rule must hold capital reserves and undergo stress testing. Qivalis's license places it in the same regulatory class as traditional payment service providers, distinguishing it from unregulated stablecoin projects that operate without banking infrastructure.
The 37-bank consortium backing Qivalis includes major European lenders. Traditional bank-to-bank payments move through centralized clearing systems operated by entities like Euroclear and TARGET2; Qivalis offers an alternative channel for institutions to execute transactions directly. The infrastructure is designed to reduce settlement times and operational costs for high-value transfers among financial institutions.
European regulators have accelerated digital currency pilots since 2020. The European Central Bank launched Project Aca, a test of wholesale central bank digital currency for interbank settlement, in 2022. Several EU member states have explored retail digital euro implementations in parallel. Qivalis's authorization comes as other private sector infrastructure providers seek MiCA compliance with capital and governance requirements.
The license does not grant Qivalis a banking charter; it specifies the company as an e-money issuer, a narrower authorization focused on token issuance rather than lending or deposit-taking. Other MiCA-compliant stablecoin projects remain in application phase across Europe as regulators develop precedent through individual licensing decisions.
The number of MiCA authorizations granted to e-money institutions for crypto asset issuance remains in single digits across the EU as of October 2026. Qivalis's approval from the DNB, one of the EU's largest financial regulators, may serve as precedent for other national regulators evaluating similar applications from banking consortiums seeking onchain euro rails.
The regulatory filing to watch is whether other EU central banks issue comparable licenses to competing consortiums within the next 12 months; the speed of follow-on approvals will indicate whether MiCA has created a stable framework attracting institutional infrastructure providers or remains a bottleneck.
