Stablecoins are entering the corporate mainstream
Writing: Terence Tse & Dražen Kapusta
Not so long ago, stablecoins were a niche cryptocurrency tool. Today, they are rapidly making the transition to become mainstream financial instruments, showing substantial potential to transform global financial transactions. While originally used mainly by traders and investors, stablecoins are now essential to a growing number of corporate operations, signaling a significant shift in business and finance.
The projected growth of stablecoins is remarkable. Standard Chartered Bank anticipates an increase in circulation from approximately $250 billion in 2025 to an estimated $2 trillion by the end of 2028. That represents a trajectory of exponential growth, considering that just five years ago, the total circulation stood at a mere $10 billion. Major financial entities, such as Stripe and Visa, are actively deepening their investments in this space. Concurrently, regulatory bodies worldwide are establishing frameworks to govern stablecoins, suggesting that they are poised to become central to the global financial system.
But what exactly are stablecoins, what are the advantages and disadvantages associated with this new form of digital money, and what are the potential impacts they can have on businesses?
What are stablecoins?
At its core, a stablecoin is a cryptocurrency designed to keep a stable value by tying its worth to a sovereign currency, such as the US dollar. Unlike volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, stablecoins resemble traditional fiat currencies. Think of a stablecoin as a digital voucher that is valued at exactly $1. The company that issues this voucher guarantees that each voucher is backed by a real dollar or an equivalent value in assets. This guarantee ensures that the stablecoin can always be exchanged back for its physical counterpart
at face value.
One may ask what companies gain from issuing stablecoins. The short answer, for a majority of issuers, is that these companies use the dollar that users paid to purchase stablecoins to buy government bonds. Then, in time, they collect the interest on those bonds.
Beyond that, stablecoins offer a compelling array of advantages to their users when compared to traditional money systems.
Major pros and cons
One of the most significant advantages relates to costs. Stablecoins can be transferred over the internet outside the traditional banking system, potentially making transactions faster and cheaper than conventional methods. This, in fact, is the defining feature of stablecoins: their ability to combine the stability of fiat currency with the efficiency and programmability inherent in blockchain technology.
That combination offers multiple benefits. First and foremost is enhanced speed and efficiency. Stablecoins can significantly accelerate payment settlements. Cross-border transactions, which are slow and error-prone, can now be completed in seconds.
The cost advantages can be significant, too. Traditional cross-border payments often involve fees of £25 to £50 per transaction, due to multiple intermediaries and currency exchanges. In sharp contrast, stablecoin transfers usually cost less than £0.01 in network fees.
Then there’s the access to stable currencies. This is an important consideration for individuals and businesses in countries struggling with high inflation, volatile currencies or unstable banking systems, since stablecoins can provide a reliable substitute for currencies like the US dollar. This makes them a potentially-crucial tool for managing risk and safeguarding against economic downturns, utilizing the global value of the US dollar.
Last but not least, stablecoins allow for the financial inclusion and accessibility that traditional money fails to provide. They can empower unbanked and underbanked populations by offering accessible, low-cost and reliable financial services, effectively bypassing many traditional banking barriers.
However, the widespread adoption of stablecoins also brings significant risks and challenges that need careful management. Perhaps the most-cited argument against stablecoins is the potential for illicit activity. Unfortunately, they are a primary vehicle for unlawful transactions within the cryptocurrency sector. Research published by Chainalysis in January 2026 found that illicit crypto activity grew to $154 billion in 2025 – with stablecoins accounting for 84% of illicit transaction volumes.
Part of the issue is that stablecoins currently dwell in a gray area within regulatory frameworks. They often exist ambiguously: as a payment network, a bank deposit and a security. This ambiguity calls for new regulations – adding to ongoing uncertainty.
Another problem is the lack of transparency and audits. Despite public attestations of reserves, many issuers have yet to provide complete and independent audits, raising legitimate concerns about the proper backing of their tokens. This opacity complicates efforts to accurately model their potential impacts on overall financial stability.
Finally, it is important to recognize that stablecoins are not cash. The assets backing a stablecoin can decrease in value or become illiquid, making it hard for the issuer to meet redemption requests at par value. If these backing assets are inherently risky, a sudden increase in redemption requests, similar to a bank run, could force the issuer to sell assets at distressed prices, causing losses and reducing confidence in the stablecoin.
Revolutionizing corporate treasury operations
Beyond their general financial implications, stablecoins are set to become a transformative force in corporate treasury management, resolving longstanding issues with current payment methods. Their unique features make them an increasingly attractive choice for companies operating across multiple currencies and regions.
Real-time and significantly cheaper transactions Traditional cross-border payments typically take two to five business days, often with no processing on weekends or holidays. In stark contrast, stablecoin transactions usually take just two to three minutes, or even seconds, and can be processed at any time. This efficiency is combined with a significant decrease in transaction costs, resulting from the reduced number of intermediaries in the payment network. While traditional wired transfers can cost $20 to $25 for domestic use in the US and $40 to $50 internationally (with cross-border fees potentially ranging from 2% to 4%), using the Solana blockchain platform, network fees can be as low as 0.000005 SOL, equivalent to £0.0008. The infrastructure supporting these rapid and low-cost transactions is quickly developing; Europe’s HashNET (of which co-author Dražen Kapusta is principal), for example, is a blockchain format designed for speed and scalability, capable of processing over 20,000 transactions per second.
Automated liquidity management Corporate treasurers can program stablecoins to optimize cash positions through just-in-time funding, recurring payments, and automated rebalancing based on preset conditions or real-time data. For instance, a subsidiary’s account could be automatically topped up if its balance falls below a certain threshold. This feature greatly reduces the need for manual intervention and also removes the requirement for pre-funding across multiple jurisdictions, which often forces companies to pay in advance, or pay immediately, for bank-processed transactions – regardless of the actual payment due date. Companies like Siemens and Maersk have been exploring these possibilities.
Working capital optimization By preventing settlement delays and unlocking trapped liquidity, stablecoins enhance capital efficiency, reduce working capital requirements, and strengthen supplier relationships. Programmability can further enforce internal liquidity and control policies automatically, such as restricting transfers to pre-approved counterparties or requiring multi-signature approval for high-value transactions, thereby lowering the risk of human error or fraud. Moreover, the real-time data and predictable settlements provided by stablecoins significantly improve the accuracy of cash flow forecasting, empowering corporate treasurers with enhanced planning capabilities when combined with automated variance analysis.
Exchange rate risk management In economies marked by high inflation or capital controls, stablecoins provide businesses with a more stable way to manage their cash. Corporate treasuries can quickly convert local currency proceeds into stablecoins, immediately safeguarding their working capital from further value decline that could occur if they hold weakening local currencies. Similarly, a company in a country with volatile exchange rates receiving payments in stablecoins can protect its income, without the urgent need to convert it into a potentially depreciating local currency.
Bank relationship management Stablecoins decrease dependence on traditional banks, potentially reducing bank accounts by 70%, simplifying banking systems, decreasing maintenance expenses, and boosting negotiating power for corporations.
Skepticism and challenges for corporate adoption
Despite these compelling advantages, corporate treasury professionals, particularly in developed countries with stable currencies, remain rightly cautious. There are at least three reasons.
Better payment infrastructure weakens demand Companies in the US and Western Europe benefit from robust local financial infrastructure, which often makes the immediate transition to stablecoins appear less urgent.
Potential adoption challenges Integrating stablecoins can create new operational challenges. Managing multiple stablecoin wallets – one for each type – can be like handling various traditional currencies. Transferring funds from stablecoin wallets to regular deposit accounts may not be instant. It could also incur fees, prompting questions about whether stablecoins are always more cost-effective than traditional wire transfers. Foreign users holding US dollar-pegged stablecoins also remain exposed to foreign exchange risk, as fluctuations between their local currency and the dollar can still affect their value.
Existing infrastructure inadequacies Infrastructure readiness and the inherent complexity of integrating stablecoin systems into existing financial architectures can also pose significant challenges, often requiring dedicated resources to address. Treasury functions are typically risk-averse and tend to be slow in adopting new financial technologies without clear mandates, proven case studies or strong regulatory reassurance. Crucially, any stablecoin integration must first secure approval from compliance teams within the organization.
Given these challenges, the path to widespread corporate adoption remains challenging. Initiatives like the US Genius Act of 2025 – that is, the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act – aim to offer a regulatory boost. Yet specific requirements for large listed companies to obtain regulatory committee approval before issuing stablecoins, along with agreements that prohibit data misuse or forced adoption, pose significant obstacles.
Constantly-changing global regulatory frameworks – including the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) in the EU and ongoing efforts in the UK – provide both much-needed clarity and new compliance challenges. This complex environment often leads companies to partner with established financial institutions, like JPMorgan’s Kinexys or Citi’s Token Services. Corporate treasurers continue to prioritze expertise and trust over haste when it comes to adopting these emerging technologies.
Tread carefully, confidently
Despite these challenges, stablecoins, if adopted en masse, can clearly revolutionize the way our current financial system works. They can make it easier for individual users to send and receive money, and change how they manage their finances.
For businesses, the advantages come from improved cash management. Indeed, recognizing the strategic benefits of tokenization could unlock its vast potential to modernize capital markets and boost efficiency across numerous industries.
Stablecoins have clearly established a beachhead in corporate finance, emerging as a potential backbone for business operations. That position is being further solidified by major infrastructure initiatives like 8ra, the largest open-source project in EU history, which boasts a €3.2 billion budget and involves 150 significant European participants. This consortium presents a prime opportunity to create a genuine EU sandbox for stablecoin implementation, and provides the necessary scale and infrastructure for swift deployment across the European market.
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts have long claimed that digital currencies would rapidly transform global finance. However, such predictions have yet to come true. Many businesses have so far avoided adopting this technology in their operations. Stablecoins might pave the way for more widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies, leveraging their transformative potential. Although challenges and skepticism remain, the advantages of using stablecoins in corporate treasuries – such as faster transactions, lower costs, and greater operational efficiency – are clear.
It has been said that there are decades when nothing happens, and weeks in which decades happen. This is an apt description of business’s stuttering adoption of cryptocurrencies to date. It may seem that decades unfold, fast, if companies take the leap and embrace stablecoins.
Terence Tse is professor of finance at Hult International Business School. Dražen Kapusta is principal and founder of Cotrugli Business School
