Standard Chartered Offers Direct USDC Minting Access; BNY Mellon Expands Services

According to announcements this week, Standard Chartered became the first global systemically important bank to offer institutional clients direct access to minting and redeeming Circle's USDC, eliminating the need for third-party intermediaries. Days earlier, BNY Mellon, the world's largest custody bank managing $59 trillion in assets, expanded its own USDC infrastructure to allow institutional clients to custody, mint, and redeem USDC through its existing systems.

The near-simultaneous moves by two of the world's most systemically significant banks signal an industry inflection point. Both are classified as global systemically important institutions by the Basel Committee. In parallel, a consortium of 37 European financial institutions led by Qivalis is developing the Euro On-Chain (EUOC) stablecoin under the MiCA framework to establish a regulated euro-denominated alternative, as dollar-backed tokens currently represent over 99% of total stablecoin market capitalization.