Mica

10 major European banks just unveiled their stablecoin giant: Qivalis. It’s the headline the industry awaited. For us at Chain4Travel, this announcement is the culmination of a 1-year journey reshaping travel payments. 🚀 Here is how we got here: Oct 9, 2024 — ECB B2B Payments Workshop. We present travel’s case for programmable money to 150+ experts, connect with ING’s digital assets team, and collaborate on requirements for their stablecoin project. Dec 4 — Monerium’s EURe announced on Camino testnet, complementing historical partner SH Digital’s EURSH tokenized deposit. Multiple regulated euro options for travel businesses: different rails, same destination. Feb-May 2025 — ING tests minting on Camino. Chain4Travel among ~70 pioneers selected for the ECB Digital Euro Innovation Platform, testing how retail CBDC conditional payments sync with blockchain settlement for travel B2B. Jun 12 — While in Nairobi to speak at Kenya Blockchain and Crypto Conference, I witness a thriving stablecoin ecosystem in action, powering last-mile payments. The infrastructure is proven. Wake-up call for Europe: Africa isn’t waiting. Sep 25 — 9 major European banks announce consortium for stablecoin: ING, UniCredit, Danske, CaixaBank, SEB, Deka, Sella, KBC, Raiffeisen Bank International. Sep 26 — ECB presents in Milan platform findings: B2B, offline, and blockchain sync are priorities for 2026. We pushed for these. Sep 29 — Chain4Travel’s Travel Un’chained: ING’s Jan Lebbe presents the consortium to 170 travel C-levels. SAP shows Digital Currency Hub: stablecoins integrated into ERP with automated reconciliation & audit trails. MTS Globe reveals Payment Hub on Camino: 95% workload reduction, 4.6s execution, <€0.001/tx, 0% failures. Late Oct — Back in Kenya on holiday. I buy a flight with stablecoins on Trip.com, B2C is here. Then M-Shwari (M-PESA savings) goes down for 3 days. Balances show zero despite real savings. 7.4M users, KES 49B deposits, inaccessible. Funds are safe, but a decentralized architecture would have avoided sync errors. On-chain + last mile is the way M-PESA Africa. Dec 1 — BNP Paribas joins the consortium. Now 10 anchor European banks. Dec 2 — Qivalis unveiled: the Amsterdam-based entity, Jan-Oliver Sell as CEO, Sir Howard Davies leading Supervisory Board, Floris Lugt designated CFO. DNB e-money license in progress. Launch H2 2026. ...