U.S. Bank completed a live cross-border payment between its North American and European entities using USBDC, a dollar-backed stablecoin the bank issued on Stellar, the bank said Wednesday.
A federally regulated U.S. bank issuing its own token on a permissionless chain puts bank money on the same rails as USDT and USDC. The bank kept the controls a supervisor would ask for: the pilot tested freezing and clawback alongside minting and payment redemption.
The transaction settled on Stellar while staying connected to the bank's core finance, risk, compliance and operations systems, U.S. Bank said. It also validated the bank's internally developed Digital Asset Platform, which issues and moves tokenized assets and links the bank's existing infrastructure to blockchain networks.
"This live pilot demonstrates our ability to accelerate global cash management and money movement capabilities," said Gunjan Kedia, chairman and chief executive officer at U.S. Bank.
The bank did not say how much money moved, whether USBDC will be offered to clients, what backs the token or where the reserves sit. Uses still under review include liquidity management, collateral mobility and cross-border treasury operations, according to the release.
