X Change: 21 global financial institutions move into stablecoins

X Change is your weekly briefing from BetterX & AUDX on the developments shaping digital assets, stablecoins and financial infrastructure.

This week:

• 21 major financial institutions announced plans for a new stablecoin initiative.
• The RBA opened a consultation examining how stablecoins and other forms of tokenised money could interact with Australia's settlement infrastructure.
• Citi completed live transactions on Swift's blockchain-based ledger with banks in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
• Institutional access to digital assets continued to broaden.

Here's what caught our attention this week.

🪙 Stablecoin Watch

21 global financial institutions join forces on a new stablecoin initiative

A group of 21 international financial institutions has committed to establish a new company to support the issuance of stablecoins.

The group includes Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Fidelity Investments, Santander, Deutsche Bank, UBS and MUFG Bank, alongside institutions across North America, Europe, East Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The initial focus will be a U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin, targeted to go to market in the first half of 2027.

Longer term, the group intends to explore stablecoins denominated in additional G7 currencies, with a euro-denominated offering identified as a priority.

Potential use cases include cross-border payments and digital asset settlement across wholesale, institutional and retail markets. The initiative says it intends to comply with the U.S. GENIUS Act and Europe's MiCA framework, where applicable.

Why it matters

The institutions behind the initiative represent a significant expansion of traditional finance's involvement in stablecoins.

Stablecoins are increasingly being considered alongside tokenised bank deposits and other forms of digital money for payments and settlement.

That raises an important question for the market:

How will bank-backed stablecoins, independently issued stablecoins and tokenised bank deposits coexist?

Source: Joint announcement by participating institutions, 1 September 2026.

🇦🇺 Australia Watch

RBA asks how stablecoins could fit into Australia's settlement infrastructure

The Reserve Bank of Australia has launched a consultation on the Role of RITS in Supporting Settlement in a Tokenised Ecosystem.

The consultation examines how the RBA's settlement services - the Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System (RITS) and Fast Settlement Service (FSS) - could support tokenised finance in Australia. One of the four areas under consideration is access to central-bank reserves in stablecoin arrangements.

Specifically, the RBA is seeking views on how stablecoin issuers might use central-bank reserves if access were made available in the future, including possible account structures, access models and operational requirements.

The consultation also considers:

• synchronising tokenised assets with settlement services;
• exchanging different forms of tokenised private money;
• exchanging tokenised private money with traditional bank accounts; and
• design considerations for tokenised central-bank reserves.

Submissions close on 30 October 2026.

Why it matters

The RBA is not proposing or announcing access to central-bank reserves for stablecoin issuers. cIt is asking the market how such an arrangement could work if access were made available in the future. The consultation shows that stablecoins are now explicitly part of Australia's discussion about the future architecture of money and settlement.

Source: Reserve Bank of Australia, 3 September 2026.

💵 The Future of Money

Australia still sees no clear case for a retail CBDC

Alongside its tokenised-settlement consultation, the RBA and Australian Treasury published an updated assessment of a potential retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). The assessment maintains that there is currently no clear public-interest case for issuing a retail CBDC in Australia, reaffirming the conclusion reached in their 2024 joint paper. The RBA and Treasury's work on digital money is instead continuing across areas including wholesale tokenised markets, settlement infrastructure and different forms of private digital money.

Why it matters

Australia's approach to digital money is becoming more defined.

While the RBA currently sees no clear case for a government-issued retail CBDC, it is actively examining how Australia's financial infrastructure should support tokenised assets and private forms of tokenised money.

The distinction is important: digitising money doesn't necessarily require creating a new retail central-bank currency.

Source: Reserve Bank of Australia & Australian Treasury, 3 September 2026.

🌏 Payments & Settlement

Citi completes live transactions on Swift's blockchain-based ledger with FAB and OCBC

Citi has successfully processed live transactions on Swift's blockchain-based ledger, working with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and Singapore's OCBC.

Citi and FAB completed live U.S. dollar transactions in the Middle East, while Citi and OCBC completed live U.S. dollar transactions in Southeast Asia.

Citi says it is the first U.S. bank to conduct live native-ledger transactions as part of the initiative.

The transactions form part of a controlled proof-of-concept running from July to December 2026. Citi expects to conduct similar transactions with DBS and UOB later this month.

Swift's model uses shared blockchain infrastructure to support payment commitments using tokenised deposits, while final settlement continues to rely on established settlement models such as real-time gross settlement.

Why it matters

Banks are continuing to test how tokenised commercial-bank money could support faster and more continuous cross-border payments.

At the same time, stablecoins are being developed for many of the same use cases.

The development of both models reinforces the importance of interoperability between different forms of digital money and existing financial infrastructure.

Source: Citi, 2 September 2026.

📈 Institutional Markets

XRP ETFs record 11 consecutive sessions of inflows

U.S. spot XRP ETFs recorded 11 consecutive trading sessions of net inflows, attracting approximately US$170 million during the streak.

Cumulative net inflows since the products launched last November reached approximately US$1.68 billion, according to SoSoValue data reported by CoinDesk.

Regulatory filings for the second quarter also showed Goldman Sachs as the largest disclosed institutional holder of XRP ETF products at 30 June, with approximately US$87.4 million in exposure.

There is an important distinction, however. These filings show positions held at a particular point in time. They don't reveal whether an institution is taking a long-term directional position, facilitating client activity, market-making or hedging the exposure elsewhere.

Why it matters

The broader development is the expansion of regulated investment infrastructure beyond Bitcoin and Ether. A wider range of digital assets is becoming accessible through investment structures familiar to traditional investors and financial institutions.

Bitcoin remains significantly larger: U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted more over six sessions in late August than XRP ETFs have accumulated since launch.

Source: CoinDesk/SoSoValue/regulatory filings, 2 September 2026.

🇦🇺 What does this look like in Australian dollars?

This week's developments bring the conversation closer to home.

Global financial institutions are developing stablecoins for payments and settlement, while the RBA is examining how stablecoins and other forms of tokenised money could interact with Australia's settlement infrastructure.

That's where AUDX fits into the broader conversation.

AUDX is an Australian dollar stablecoin designed to enable AUD-denominated value to move across digital asset markets and blockchain networks.

You already use Australian dollars.

AUDX simply lets you use them in more places.

From trading and digital asset settlement to payments and treasury, AUDX is designed to make the Australian dollar usable across emerging digital financial infrastructure.

AUDX is 1:1 AUD backed