The industry continues its shift from concept to execution on stablecoins, with a number of major banks and payment brands signing partnerships to adopt pegged digital assets into cross-border focused offerings. Below, we’ve discussed some of the key developments over the last couple of months.

In April, USDC issuer Circle launched a scheme alongside major global banks – including Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, Société Générale and Santander – to create a new payments network enabling real-time settlement of cross-border payments using stablecoins. It’s a move that pushes beyond the view of stablecoins as a payment method and more towards a crypto-powered alternative to Swift. 

Other moves from banks this month include SukuPay adding its stablecoin rails to the remittances app of Banco Industrial, Guatemala’s largest bank, and Ripple integrating with UAE-based Zand to enable blockchain-powered cross-border payments.

Banks are not the only cross-border players pushing towards creating global stablecoin-powered infrastructure. Visa and Mastercard have separately partnered with other companies to enable users to spend stablecoins using cards across multiple countries. The former partnered with Bridge to enable stablecoin-linked card payments in Latin America, while Mastercard’s Moonpay partnership will allow people and businesses worldwide to receive stablecoin-based payouts.

Though big payments brands and banks have been exploring stablecoins for some time, the stories now are more about executing on ambitions to create faster, less costly cross-border payments as legacy systems come under pressure and the demand for real-time payments systems grows. With stablecoin laws reportedly advancing in the US and already adopted in the EU through MiCA, big financial brands aren’t just experimenting, but positioning. 

That being said, these partnerships are still in the early stages and stablecoins’ impact on global financial infrastructure still depends on a number of factors – not least whether people are willing to adopt digital currencies for payments on a wide scale.

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Joe Baker

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Joe is Principal Editorial Analyst at FXC Intelligence, writing and editing reports, news and analysis to support the company’s weekly content and client projects. Before joining FXC Intelligence, he worked as a B2B copywriter, journalist and editor covering a broad range of topics, including technology, transport, retail and the food and beverage industries. He has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Warwick.