U.S. Bancorp Pilots Stablecoin on Stellar as Banks Push On-Chain Payments
U.S. Bancorp has formally begun a pilot of a dollar stablecoin on the Stellar blockchain, the bank confirmed Tuesday. The trial is designed to test tokenized transfers and on-chain settlement using Stellar's payments‑focused architecture, with the goal of moving funds more quickly and at lower cost than legacy rails. The move places U.S. Bancorp among a wave of Wall Street institutions experimenting with blockchain to modernize payments and liquidity flows.
The pilot matters for corporate treasuries and correspondent banking because successful tests could reduce settlement times, cut operational expenses and enable near‑real‑time liquidity management and cross‑border transfers. Regulators, counterparties and custodians will be watching how the bank addresses compliance, custody and interoperability. If the results are positive, tokenized cash could shift from experiments into wider use in wholesale and corporate banking.