Thirty-nine state bankers associations announced Tuesday the formation of BankChain Alliance, a network they describe as industry-owned, industry-designed and industry-governed, built on a common blockchain platform. The group said the network will let participating institutions offer smart payment tools, tokenized deposits, stablecoins and automated settlement while staying inside existing bank regulatory standards.

The alliance is targeting a 2027 launch and is still running a selection process for a technology partner. It said the network will be interoperable with other networks and will invite ownership from banks across the country. Kathy Kraninger, president and CEO of the Florida Bankers Association and a former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is serving as interim chair. Board members include the heads of the Texas, Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, Utah, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Massachusetts associations.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

The alliance’s own materials put the participating associations at 3,283 banks and $21.8 trillion in assets, using FDIC Call Report data as of March 31, and then note that member banks are not individually committed to the Alliance unless separately indicated. New York, California and Illinois, home to the largest bank charters in the country, do not appear on the participant list.

What the announcement makes explicit is the deposit-flight anxiety underneath it. The alliance argues that keeping deposits within the banking system preserves local lending. Bank trade groups spent the past year fighting stablecoin yield provisions and sought to slow implementation of the GENIUS Act rules governing stablecoin issuers.

The move mirrors what the largest banks are already doing. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are building a tokenized deposit network through The Clearing House targeted at the first half of 2027, the same window BankChain is aiming for. Swift said in July that 17 banks, including Citi, BNY and Wells Fargo, would begin testing live tokenized asset transactions on its blockchain-based ledger. Community and regional institutions now have a vehicle of their own, though theirs still needs a vendor, a governance structure and a working network.

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