Digital assets continue to dominate the discussion in payments, but how are the biggest cross-border payments players approaching the space? In a new video, we brought together the insights of leading executives from across payments on where stablecoins and tokenisation are now and how they will fit into the industry in the future.

We spoke to experts spanning a wide cross-section of the industry, including digital asset specialists such as Fireblocks, Ripple and BVNK; global tier-1 banking giants such asBarclays, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale; and cross-border payments specialists including Global Payments, Ebury, TerraPay and Veem.

Some of the key themes from our discussions are as follows:

  • The industry is moving from speculation to enterprise scale: Stablecoins have matured beyond being merely assets to having a functional payments output, with more than one company we spoke to saying they regard stablecoins as an alternative, real-time payments rail.
  • Stablecoins can co-exist with traditional rails: Financial institutions we spoke to suggested the future could be a hybrid model of digital assets and traditional currencies. Deutsche Bank Managing Director Rachel Whelan notes that the industry needs to invest in a “dynamic orchestration layer”, allowing clients to move money globally without necessarily having to choose between rails, while Banking Circle’s President Mikkel Grønlykke said the goal is for digital and fiat currencies to sit fully integrated, “side by side”.
  • Partnerships will be key to progress: Matt Hammerstein, CEO of Barclays UK Corporate Bank, says the bank wants to leverage its power as an established institution alongside fintech partners to help solve the complexities around creating a “multi-money universe” of different rails, spanning stablecoins, tokenised deposits and central bank digital currencies (CBDC). On the infrastructure side, Ripple’s Managing Director for UK and Europe Cassie Craddock stressed that banks need to “get their custody offering right” to safeguard assets – an “exceptionally important” part of the process – and that they must work with partners with bank-grade infrastructure to do this. 
  • Payout and treasury represent major use cases: Several providers highlighted the potential for stablecoins in payouts, in particular to emerging markets. BVNK’s Co-Founder Chris Harmse said the company was making particular headway with customers across marketplaces and payroll. Meanwhile, Global Payments’s Head of Product Marcus Lang and Veem’s CEO and Co-Founder Marwan Forzley both noted how converting local fiat to stablecoins before converting back to fiat (i.e. the stablecoin sandwich model) could enhance treasury operations. Edwin Hartog, Société Générale’s Head of Global Transaction Banking in the Netherlands, also pointed to banks playing a particular role in liquidity, as regulation requires fiat assets are held somewhere to back stablecoins. 
  • Infrastructure providers are tracking the embedded finance opportunity: BVNK’s Harmse said the company saw particular potential in providing embedded wallets that allow users to store, send and receive stablecoins, earn a yield and spend using an attached card, while Fireblocks CEO Michael Shaulov said many remitters were becoming almost like neobanks in some countries, providing a significant proposition to embed stablecoin movement services.
  • Stablecoins are not always the solution: Ani Sane, Co-Founder and CBO at TerraPay, emphasised that even with the rise of stablecoin networks, their ultimate value still lies in infrastructure that provides physical off-ramps and liquidity in local fiat currencies. Reflecting this, Ebury’s Group Head of Banking & Infrastructure Mark Hewlett said that the company thinks stablecoins can play a part in its goal to pay out to businesses in local currency, but they won’t necessarily need to replace everything the company already delivers on the fiat side.