A sea change is under way. Five years ago, many senior leaders in financial services were openly sceptical about cryptocurrency and blockchain. Since then, much has changed. Today, major institutions regularly announce plans to deploy tokenisation and digital assets. In the U.S., the traditional financial institutional pioneers in digital assets, including J.P. Morgan, BlackRock and Fidelity, are increasingly being joined by their rivals. In Europe and Asia, a series of large-scale projects is under way.
Most of these initiatives have gained traction thanks to the emergence of fiat-backed stablecoins. Mainly backed by either cash or short-duration sovereign debt, stablecoins potentially combine the stability of traditional currencies with the speed, automation and programmability of blockchain worldwide.
Today, the main attraction of stablecoins lies in their potential to act as a global medium for cross-border payments. Despite the challenges of tariffs and political instability, many C-suite executives worldwide continue to place a high priority on international trade, ranking it third in a list of their priorities over the next three to five years. Yet despite improvements, several of the traditional payment rails that underpin these ambitions remain slow and opaque. In addition, the fragmentation of payments systems along geopolitical lines has emerged as a distinct threat at times of heightened tension.
In this context, stablecoins have much to offer. In particular, financial institutions and corporations have trained their sights on building their own stablecoin payment rails, particularly for the B2B transactions that account for half of the $2.5 trillion global payments revenue generated by payment providers annually.
Financial institutions and corporations of all sizes need to understand how to exploit the opportunities created by this emerging technology as it moves from the periphery toward the centre of financial systems. For corporates, the pace of change signals a need to explore the potential of digital assets. In particular, stablecoin adoption and regulation in financial services may soon open up new possibilities for treasury managers, including 24/7 settlement, lower transaction costs, reduced foreign exchange exposure, improved cashflow visibility and enhanced liquidity management.
“The development of stablecoins by traditional financial institutions in a regulated environment has significantly increased over the past year. We now have more clarity from the regulators and efficient, as well as scalable, public blockchain technologies. These changes make stablecoins relevant for many applications.”
- Alexandre Poser, Partner, Forvis Mazars in France
Digital assets carry value or rights attributable to their owners. They can be created, stored and transferred electronically using distributed ledger technology (ie blockchain). The broad category of digital assets includes cryptocurrencies and stablecoins as well as tokenised real-world assets (RWA).
As they become a more reliable medium for payment and settlement, stablecoins are poised for mainstream adoption. The global market capitalisation of these tokens roughly doubled to just over $300 billion during 2025. As yet, however, daily volumes remain modest, accounting for tens of billions of U.S. dollar-denominated payments per day, including just $3 billion-worth of B2B transactions per day. By contrast, traditional payments rails such as Swift or Fedwire process between $5 trillion and $7 trillion in global money transfers on a daily basis.
The difference is stark, yet stablecoin payment volumes are growing rapidly. Forecasts of future adoption vary widely, but Bloomberg Intelligence suggests that by late 2030, stablecoins could account for $4.7 trillion-worth of daily global payment flows.
Today, the key use case scenario involves cross-border payments, which still often rely on legacy technology and correspondent banks, each with their own compliance checks to perform and their own fees to deduct. Many of these banks continue to rely upon end-of-day batch-based processing, which means that payments grind to a halt at night, at weekends and on public holidays. As a result, it is not unusual for outbound payments from Europe to take several days to reach the Americas, Asia or Africa. For mid-sized and large companies, the long-term impact on cash management can be significant.
Not only are traditional cross-border payments slow, but they can also be costly and opaque. For B2B customers, fees can amount to several percentage points of the amount remitted, including hidden currency exchange mark-ups. Often, there is no way for clients to check upon the progress of a payment. Reconciling fees with payments in retrospect can require manual intervention. For corporates, stablecoin payments promise to address many of these challenges.
The technology ecosystem surrounding stablecoins has matured decisively in recent years, underpinning the financial industry’s shift from experimentation to deployment. The security of digital wallets has improved. On-chain analytics has become increasingly sophisticated. Anti-money laundering screening tools are more capable. The emergence of Layer 2 blockchain solutions now offers faster, cheaper and more scalable transactions.
Perhaps the biggest source of impetus has been the emergence of regulations that promote financial stability, transparency and money-laundering safeguards. Regulatory clarity has been a key factor in encouraging financial firms to explore the possibilities of stablecoin. In the EU, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) attempts wide-ranging regulation of digital assets and related institutions that are not already covered by MIFID II. By contrast, the GENIUS Act in the U.S. adopts a narrower stance, specifically focused on stablecoins. Regulations have also emerged in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and a handful of other territories. After consultation in the UK, the Bank of England is expected to publish its rules for systemic stablecoins in the near future.
Mainstream financial institutions need to chart their way forward. Many are interested in the potential to improve payment services for customers and streamline in-house payments processes. Others are more directly concerned by the potential threat of deposit substitution, as rival regulated stablecoin issuers begin to offer more attractive returns on customer deposits. This risk will become more substantial when – and if – national governments decide to extend deposit insurance or protection to customers holding stablecoin. The resulting negative impact on credit supply, in particular, could be substantial.
Today, the global market for stablecoins is dominated by one currency (the U.S. dollar) and two key issuers: Circle (USDC) and Tether (USDT). This is likely to change in the near term as non-U.S. issuers ramp up their stablecoin efforts. Three large-scale projects are worth monitoring:
CES insight lens: stablecoin for consumers |
Each year, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) attracts 150,000 attendees to giant exhibition halls in Las Vegas to examine thousands of new products and services. CES is a vast shop window for technology and the consumer electronics industries, focusing on consumer tech, retail, and visible use cases. Stablecoins are already widely used by retail crypto investors and recent regulatory advances could have served as a catalyst for the sector’s major players at this year’s event in Las Vegas in January 2026. However, there were no major announcements of new products or services for consumers at CES this year. Just as noticeable was the lack of clear strategic messaging for consumer markets. Instead, stablecoin enthusiasts contented themselves with demos involving digital wallets, payment cards and use cases involving the Internet of Things. On one level, the relative silence underlines that consumer-facing stablecoins are not quite ready for primetime in consumer markets. Public storytelling is not a priority when questions of infrastructure, regulation and monetary sovereignty still loom so large. In terms of the technology adoption lifecycle popularised by industry analyst Geoffrey Moore, digital assets are just beginning to cross the chasm toward mainstream acceptance. New payment options will almost certainly come to market first. Here, however, questions exist about the retail offering and how retail banks and their non-bank rivals will bring to market stablecoin offerings designed for everyday use. A low ambition approach would involve consumers being offered another iteration of faster payments. With the exception of cross-border payments, which consumers make infrequently, that is hardly revolutionary. Yet the alternative of promoting stablecoins directly as a form of cryptocurrency risks stirring up anxieties about volatility, fraud and unreliability. The availability of deposit protection or insurance for consumers will be an important safeguard. Much remains to be clarified in terms of regulation of retail markets. Given the systemic risks involved, regulators are moving forward cautiously. Clearly, banks hope that regulators will limit the risk of disintermediation. However, it remains entirely possible that a technology giant such as Amazon or Apple will act as a catalyst, bypassing existing rails and networks to create an entirely new experience based around a closed-loop payments system. The challenge here is that tech giants want to operate global platforms. To achieve this, a necessary level of alignment will be necessary across a large number of national regulatory regimes. The stablecoin presence at CES 2026 may have been low key. But it is unlikely to remain that way. More lively discussion of new consumer-facing services feels like a distinct possibility in 2027 and 2028. |
Financial institutions require a roadmap leading to stablecoin adoption. Initial discussions will involve identifying a suitable business model depending on whether the objective is fast and cost-effective cross-border payments or becoming an issuer, custodian or service provider to others.
In Europe, the application process for MiCA licences is not straightforward and may involve delays. Working with a trusted partner can accelerate the process. Institutions will also need to integrate stablecoin operations with accounting, audit, compliance and risk management operations, which all have their challenges.
Build or buy decisions involve multiple options. Each creates trade-offs in terms of time to market, scope of permissible activity, compliance burdens and scalability. Once the route to market is defined, infrastructure comes into focus, including choices between rival digital wallets, on-ramp and off-ramp providers and security approaches.
“Digital assets and tokenisation will eventually accelerate settlement in capital markets. Within the EU, securities such as shares or bonds are supposed to operate on T+1 settlement before October 2027. Ultimately, blockchain will enable T+0, because settlement becomes instantaneous with this technology. The process will become more efficient and settlement risk will decline.”
Alexandre Poser Partner, Forvis Mazars, France
Nearly 20 years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of blockchain, wrote a famous white paper that inspired a generation of libertarians who regarded this new technology as an opportunity to maximise self-sovereignty and minimise the reach of government.
However, technological immaturity, a lack of trust and the absence of regulation led the financial services industry to largely ignore digital assets. Today, in the case of stablecoins, perceptions have altered substantially. As mainstream institutions bring new offerings to market, regulatory adjustments are occurring at the level of market supervision, tax and accounting rules.
“Initially, it was hard to imagine that digital assets would create major disruption in financial services. Bitcoin was created not to rely on the traditional financial system. The reality is that it has become a new line of business, one that has been adopted by mainstream financial institutions.”
- Alexandre Poser, Partner, Forvis Mazars in France
Successful adoption in payments will encourage new use cases for tokenisation, including government bonds, asset management and equities and derivatives. In many of these markets, the case for adoption already resonates across the buy side and the sell side. Further out on the horizon, the prospect of tokenising real-world assets including real estate, private credit and intellectual property continues to attract interest.
Mainstream adoption in payments represents a breakthrough moment for blockchain. In the process, discussions about philosophy have given way to something else: enthusiasm about the potential for real-time treasury operations enabled by fast, efficient and transparent digital rails.
Stablecoins offer faster, cheaper and more transparent international transactions, reducing delays, lowering fees and improving liquidity management for financial institutions and corporates.
New regimes in the EU, U.S. and Asia provide clearer standards for stability, transparency and safeguards, encouraging financial institutions to deploy stablecoin and tokenisation.
Banks and payment providers are pursuing operational efficiency, improved settlement times and new revenue models, while preparing for competitive pressure from emerging stablecoin issuers and real-world asset tokenisation.
How senior business leaders approach digital transformation technology is reshaping the future of performance, resilience and growth
This website uses cookies.
Some of these cookies are necessary, while others help us analyse our traffic, serve advertising and deliver customised experiences for you.
For more information on the cookies we use, please refer to our Privacy Policy.
This website cannot function properly without these cookies.
Analytical cookies help us enhance our website by collecting information on its usage.
We use marketing cookies to increase the relevancy of our advertising campaigns.
