Argentine banks build peso stablecoins via nonbank units

Two Argentine banking holding groups are developing peso-pegged stablecoins through nonbank subsidiaries to provide programmable peso liquidity for institutional payments, treasury operations and collateralized credit.

BIND Group is building a peso stablecoin through BEN, its regulated virtual asset service provider. BIND has announced a partnership with Circle to give institutional customers access for payments and treasury use cases that comply with local rules. BIND Group manages more than $2 billion in assets and controls BIND Banco Industrial.

Petersen Group is developing a separate offering called DIPE through a nonbank subsidiary with technical support from Lirium, a firm that provides crypto-as-a-service to local banks including Banco Galicia and Brubank. DIPE has a published whitepaper and is described by its backers as having reached a mature stage of development.

Both projects are structured outside bank balance sheets to observe a May 2022 rule from the Argentine Central Bank that prohibits private banks from offering crypto-related services to customers. The initiatives target corporate treasuries, payment desks and lenders that might use a peso-pegged token to automate conditional payments, manage liquidity on-chain and use tokenized claims as collateral for credit operations.

In March, the national securities regulator identified a peso stablecoin offering as a security being sold without appropriate compliance, indicating enforcement interest in how such tokens are classified and marketed. The central bank has periodically discussed the future of crypto regulation and is reportedly considering whether to lift its ban on private banks offering crypto services.

Technical and regulatory structures are central to both projects. BEN operates as a regulated virtual asset service provider linked to BIND’s ecosystem. Petersen is relying on Lirium for custody, issuance and on-chain functionality for DIPE. Backers say the projects aim to deliver programmable features such as payments that execute only when on-chain conditions are met while meeting compliance and reporting requirements for institutional clients.

Dollar-pegged tokens like USDC and USDT are widely used in Argentina as dollar proxies. These new stablecoins are designed to tie value to the Argentine peso and to provide programmable features for institutional workflows. Decentralized peso alternatives already exist in the market; whether the subsidiary-led products move into direct bank offerings will depend on regulatory changes and how authorities classify tokenized instruments and virtual asset service activities.