Article
25 min read time
Stablecoins moved $27 trillion in 2025, according to McKinsey - more value than most national payment systems. For the banking sector, that volume represents both a revenue opportunity and a competitive threat: clients are already routing treasury flows, cross-border settlements, and merchant payouts through stablecoin rails, whether their bank offers the capability or not.
The largest institutions are responding accordingly. JP Morgan runs a tokenized deposit system for corporate clients. Visa settles in USDC at a $3.5 billion annualized run rate. Ten of Europe's largest banks - BNP Paribas, ING, UniCredit among them - have formed Qivalis, a joint venture to issue a euro-backed stablecoin by late 2026. The common thread is that each has built or commissioned dedicated stablecoin infrastructure rather than retrofitting existing payment systems.
This article examines five stablecoin use cases where banks are deploying that infrastructure today: cross-border payments, treasury management, capital markets settlement, merchant processing, and FX conversion. For each, we break down the operational model, the institutions executing, and the specific digital assets infrastructure decisions that determine whether a bank captures this volume or loses it to non-bank competitors.
Why Banks Are Adopting Stablecoins
The pressure to adopt stablecoins in banking started on the client side: corporate treasurers, payment processors, and fund managers each hitting the same limitations in existing infrastructure.
Corporate treasurers want to move money at 11 PM on a Saturday. Payment processors need cross-border settlement without a three-day wait. And fund managers expect to exchange tokenized assets and receive payment in the same atomic transaction.
But the reality of the banking sector is that traditional rails still can't do any of this. SWIFT processes messages between correspondent banks that batch-settle during business hours, and Fedwire shuts down at 7 PM Eastern. Even newer real-time payment systems like RTP and Pix work only within domestic borders. McKinsey's July 2025 analysis described stablecoins as "a global alternative to conventional payments infrastructure" — specifically because they operate continuously, settle in near real-time, and can enforce compliance rules programmatically at the point of transfer.
But while client demand explains the pull toward stablecoins, four more conditions on the banking side explain why institutions are acting on it now.
Regulation. The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) governs stablecoin issuance with specific requirements for reserves, licensing, and KYC procedures. In the United States, the GENIUS Act - signed into law in 2025 - established federal oversight for stablecoin issuers. Banks that were waiting for rules before committing capital now have them. For example, The GENIUS Act mandates that stablecoin issuers maintain specific reserve assets - cash, short-term government debt, and central bank deposits - with independent monthly attestations. In practice, any insured depository institution supervised by a Federal Reserve Bank can now engage in stablecoin-related activities under updated OCC and FDIC guidance issued in 2025.
Market momentum. A joint McKinsey–Artemis Analytics study found that B2B stablecoin payments reached $226 billion in 2025, growing 733% year-over-year. Stablecoin market capitalization crossed $300 billion by the end of 2025, and McKinsey forecasts it could reach $2 to $4 trillion by 2030.
Risk profile. Stablecoins are tokenized assets backed 1:1 by reserves - typically cash and short-term government securities - subject to audit and redemption. Major stablecoin issuers hold their reserve portfolios in money market funds and short-duration government debt, giving the underlying assets a risk profile that bank risk teams can evaluate with existing frameworks. Circle's USDC reserves, for example, are held primarily in treasury bills and overnight repurchase agreements managed by BlackRock. This all means that operationally, stablecoins resemble money market instruments, with one addition: they live on a blockchain, making them transferable peer-to-peer, globally, at any hour. This means banks evaluating this space aren't discovering a completely new asset class.
Infrastructure. Building in-house wallet infrastructure with the right compliance workflows and multi-chain connectivity in-house can be a multi-year engineering commitment. Platforms like Utila compress that timeline by providing MPC-based wallet infrastructure, policy engines, and multi-chain support through an API-first integration.
Banks without stablecoin capabilities risk losing payment revenue to fintech competitors and stablecoin-native platforms that already offer faster, cheaper transfer services. Several major institutions have responded by issuing their own stablecoins.
So which use cases are delivering real value in a banking context?
Custody and Safeguarding Digital Assets
For banks, one of the most natural roles in the stablecoin economy is safeguarding digital cash on behalf of clients and within their own operations. As customers hold more value in tokenized forms of cash, banks have an opportunity to extend their role from safeguarding fiat deposits to safeguarding stablecoins and other tokenized liquid assets as well.
That includes holding stablecoins on behalf of corporate clients, supporting treasury balances held in digital form, and providing the controls institutions need to move those assets securely across financial markets and payment flows. In practice, this is the bridge between digital assets and traditional financial systems: clients want the speed and programmability of stablecoins without giving up the security, governance, and operational trust they already expect from a bank.
This use case becomes even more important as banks evaluate different forms of tokenized money within an existing regulatory framework and consider deploying a secure tokenization platform for institutions to manage issuance, custody, and transfer of onchain assets. Some models, such as tokenized deposits, are designed to preserve the legal structure of bank deposits and may retain familiar features such as deposit insurance protections, while stablecoins backed by US dollars sit outside that structure.
Either way, the operational requirement is similar: secure wallet infrastructure, clear approval policies, compliance controls, and integration into the bank’s existing systems. That is where Utila fits. Utila gives banks the self-custodial wallet and governance infrastructure to securely hold, manage, and move stablecoins at scale, so custody becomes not just passive safekeeping but a bank-grade service layer for digital cash.
Cross-Border Payments and Stablecoin Settlement
Cross-border payments are the most immediately compelling stablecoin use case for banks. JP Morgan has estimated that cross-border payment fees generate roughly $120 billion annually - a fee pool that stablecoin-based alternatives are starting to erode. Stablecoin-based cross-border settlement has the potential to restructure how global finance handles the trillions of dollars that move between jurisdictions daily.
In a traditional cross-border wire, money passes through multiple correspondent banks, each taking a cut and adding processing time. A USD-to-EUR transfer might route through three or four institutions over two to five business days, with transaction fees compounding at each hop. The sender often can't confirm exact arrival time, fees, or exchange rate until the transfer completes.
Stablecoin payments cut out those intermediaries. A bank holding USDC can transfer it to a counterparty anywhere in the world in seconds, at a fraction of the transaction costs associated with the traditional banking system. The transaction records on-chain with full visibility into timing, status, and fees — all known before the transfer goes out.
For banks handling high volumes of international corporate payments, that kind of speed and cost reduction reshapes the economics of entire corridors. The impact is especially pronounced in emerging markets, where correspondent banking networks are thinner and where fees for international payments fees can exceed 5% of transaction value.
How Utila enables stablecoin settlement for banks
Settling cross-border payments in stablecoins introduces operational requirements that don't exist in traditional correspondent banking: secure key management across multiple blockchain networks, real-time compliance screening on every transaction, and the ability to operate across chains without building separate integrations for each one.
Utila's platform addresses each of these:
MPC wallet architecture distributes signing authority across multiple parties without exposing a complete private key, eliminating single points of failure in key management.
Embedded compliance screening via Chainalysis and TRM integrations checks every transfer against sanctions lists and AML rules before it reaches the blockchain.
Native multi-chain support lets banks operate across Ethereum, Solana, Tron, and other networks from a single console.
Together, these capabilities let banks move from evaluating stablecoin settlement to running it in production without a multi-year in-house infrastructure build.
Treasury and Liquidity Management
Large banks manage treasury operations across dozens of entities, currencies, and jurisdictions - each with its own banking relationships, cut-off windows, and reporting cadences. In such a setting, liquidity can sometimes get trapped in prefunded accounts waiting for settlement windows to open. This challenge is compounded by the fact that real-time visibility across positions is often limited while reconciliation runs in batches hours or days after the fact.
Moving funds between subsidiaries is another commo pain point. It involves navigating intermediary banks, correspondent fees, and time zone constraints. The result is capital sitting idle not because it isn't needed elsewhere, but because the infrastructure to mobilize it operates on schedules and rails that weren't designed for continuous, cross-border treasury operations.
Stablecoins are a material improvement for these challenges because they add a settlement rail that operates continuously with no cut-off windows, correspondent dependencies, or batching delays, especially when paired with institutional crypto treasury management that centralizes visibility and control. For treasury teams, that means faster liquidity mobilization between entities, lower prefunding requirements across jurisdictions, and more responsive capital allocation when market conditions shift.
The operational impact compounds when that rail is paired with digital asset treasury operations, institutional-grade governance, compliance workflows, and connectivity to both onchain and traditional banking infrastructure.
How Utila helps banks operationalize stablecoin-based treasury flows
Utila customers already run this kind of stablecoin treasury workflow today. Our platform lets treasury teams create dedicated wallets for each entity, business unit, or bank account, then move stablecoins between them with MPC-secured, policy-controlled approvals. Automated wallet sweeping consolidates incoming funds into treasury wallets without manual intervention, and integrated off-ramp partners convert stablecoins to fiat in local bank accounts when needed. Here's what that looks like in practice:
Real-time visibility: On-chain balances update immediately after each transfer, giving treasury desks a live picture of cash positions across all entities. Compare that to the T+1 lag most banks deal with today.
Automated inter-entity settlement: Smart contracts trigger transfers based on predefined rules — for example, moving funds to a subsidiary when its balance drops below a threshold.
Reduced idle capital: When you can move money in minutes rather than hours, you don't need to park as much in nostro and vostro accounts. That frees up working capital which can be redirected to revenue-generating activities like bank loans and trade finance, improving the institution's return on assets.
Programmable controls: Compliance rules, approval workflows, and spending limits are encoded directly into transfer logic through Utila's policy engine, reducing manual oversight.
These advantages multiply at scale. A bank using stablecoins for treasury management across 30 countries with dozens of subsidiaries and multiple currencies can recover significant capital by switching from batch-scheduled operations to on-demand stablecoin transfers. Reconciliation gets simpler too - Utila's labeled wallets, tagging system, and exportable audit logs let treasury teams match stablecoin movements 1:1 with accounting records.
Merchant and B2B Payment Processing
B2B payments were the fastest-growing stablecoin use case in 2025. According to a joint McKinsey-Artemis study, B2B stablecoin payment volume measured $226 billion last year - 58% of all real stablecoin payments. While this sum may represent a small fraction of total digital payments globally, the study also showed a year-over-year growth of 733% - a gigantic rate that signals where enterprise payment flows are heading.
Cost structure explains most of that growth, and it illustrates the core benefits of stablecoins for payments at the enterprise level.
A typical cross-border B2B payment through traditional rails often costs around 1% to 2% on average globally, and in some corridors it can exceed 3%, once bank fees, FX spreads, and intermediary charges are included.
Stablecoin-based payment rails can reduce that meaningfully, in some cases bringing the transaction layer down to low basis points or less, depending on the blockchain, on/off-ramp, FX, and payout setup. For a company making $50 million in annual cross-border supplier payments, even a 1% reduction in total payment cost would return $500,000 to the bottom line.
Merchant settlement is evolving alongside B2B. Visa's stablecoin settlement capability means that card transactions paid by consumers in fiat can be settled to merchants and acquirers in USDC - without changing the consumer experience. Merchants receive funds faster (seven days a week instead of five) and gain more predictable settlement timing. As Visa's Global Head of Growth Products put it: banking partners aren't asking about stablecoin settlement anymore - "they're preparing to use it."
For banks serving commercial clients, stablecoin payment processing opens up a new service layer. Instead of routing everything through SWIFT, a bank can offer stablecoin-based payment corridors for specific high-volume routes - USD-to-MXN supplier payments, for example, or EUR-to-GBP trade settlement. Clients get faster execution and lower costs; the bank retains the relationship and earns fees on conversion and custody.
The operational challenge is delivering this without pushing clients onto unfamiliar infrastructure. A corporate client initiating a payment from their banking portal should not need to manage wallets, choose blockchains, or handle gas fees. Routing, approvals, compliance, and reconciliation should happen behind the scenes. That requires an infrastructure layer between the bank’s core systems and blockchain networks: wallet orchestration, transaction routing, fee management, policy controls, and compliance screening at scale.
For banks, that creates a build-or-buy decision. Earlier digital asset infrastructure often came as bundled platforms that offered fast deployment but limited control, visibility, and flexibility. As stablecoin payment volumes grow and regulatory requirements become more specific, that model becomes harder to justify. Banks increasingly need modular infrastructure they can integrate into their own systems and configure to their own policies, rather than a black box they have to work around.
How Utila enables stablecoin payment processing for banks
Utila's platform is built around this principle. Rather than replacing a bank's existing systems, it provides the stablecoin infrastructure layer that plugs into them:
Programmatic wallet creation lets banks generate and manage wallets via API, embedding stablecoin capabilities directly into existing client portals and payment workflows.
Intelligent gas optimization through Utila's gas station and Sponsored Transfers features sponsors transaction fees at the infrastructure level, so corporate clients never interact with native blockchain tokens.
Policy-controlled approvals enforce the bank's own governance rules - transaction limits, multi-party sign-off, jurisdiction-specific restrictions - before any transfer reaches the blockchain.
Batch payout execution handles high-volume supplier payments with compliance screening on every transaction, integrated via Chainalysis and TRM.
The result is that a bank can offer stablecoin-based payment corridors to commercial clients without building blockchain infrastructure from scratch, while retaining full control over policies, compliance, and client experience.
FX Conversion and On/Off-Ramp Infrastructure
Many of the stablecoin use cases covered in this article follow a similar pattern: a client funds in one fiat currency, value moves through a stablecoin rail, and the recipient receives payout in another fiat currency. A European corporate paying a Mexican supplier, for example, might fund in EUR, settle through USDC on Solana, and deliver MXN to the supplier’s local account. For the bank, the challenge is not just the stablecoin leg in the middle, but the full conversion path around it.
That is why the bank’s ability to manage FX and conversion efficiently is central to the value of these payment flows. While a stablecoin transaction improves the speed and cost of the middle leg, the value to the bank also depends on how efficiently funds can enter and exit that rail. The bank still has to choose the right asset, network, liquidity source, and conversion path, while keeping the process compliant and operationally seamless.
To offer these services at scale, banks need infrastructure that can support:
Fiat on/off-ramping: moving funds into and out of stablecoin rails across multiple currencies and payout corridors
Cross-currency routing: choosing the most efficient path based on liquidity, cost, and destination
Embedded compliance: applying AML, KYC, and sanctions screening at the point of conversion and settlement
Liquidity and counterparty access: ensuring the bank is not dependent on a single provider or thin corridor
Interoperability across networks: using swaps and bridging when value needs to move across fragmented blockchain liquidity
How Utila streamlines this:
This is where providers like Utila come in. Rather than treating on/off-ramping, compliance, and cross-network movement as separate workflows, Utila helps banks manage them as part of a single operational flow around stablecoin payments, enabled by:
Utila Link: connects banks to partner networks for fiat conversion and payout flows across jurisdictions
Compliance integrations: apply AML, KYC, and screening controls directly within conversion and settlement workflows, powered by TRM Labs integration and enhanced AML/KYT capabilities with Chainalysis
On/off-ramp connectivity: gives banks multiple routes into and out of stablecoin rails rather than relying on one provider, including global banking rails via Borderless.xyz
Native swap and bridging: helps institutions move across assets and networks when liquidity or payout requirements demand it
Taken together with MPC security, governance, and APIs, these capabilities turn stablecoin payments from a narrow crypto rail into a usable bank service. Instead of leaving FX conversion, compliance, and cross-network execution to manual processes or external providers, banks can manage them as part of a single operating model embedded into their own products and workflows.
Tokenized Deposits
Tokenized deposits represent a different route into digital money infrastructure than stablecoins. Where stablecoins are bearer assets issued by non-bank or bank-affiliated entities and held in external wallets, a tokenized deposit is a digital representation of a commercial bank deposit liability - one that remains on the bank's balance sheet. That distinction matters because it affects capital treatment, regulatory classification, deposit insurance eligibility, and the trust framework that governs the bank-client relationship.
Conceptually, tokenized deposits sit between stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Stablecoins bring programmability and always-on transferability but operate outside the traditional deposit framework. CBDCs represent central bank money in digital form but remain largely in pilot stages across most jurisdictions. Tokenized deposits combine the programmability of onchain money with the legal and regulatory protections of commercial banking - allowing banks to issue, transfer, and settle digital money within a framework they already operate under.
For banks, the appeal is that tokenized deposits allow participation in onchain settlement and treasury workflows without stepping outside the familiar logic of commercial bank money. That makes them potentially relevant across treasury mobility, liquidity management, collateral flows, and settlement of tokenized assets - use cases where banks need both the speed of on-chain rails and the governance of their existing deposit infrastructure.
One distinction worth noting is that tokenized deposits can potentially pay interest, because they remain bank deposits. Interest-bearing stablecoins also exist, but the yield mechanism is different and the holder does not maintain a deposit relationship with a regulated bank. From a banking perspective, not all yield-bearing digital money carries the same regulatory standing, client protections, or balance sheet implications.
However, tokenized deposits do not remove the infrastructure problem. Even if a bank issues the deposit, it still needs wallet infrastructure to manage onchain balances, policy controls and approval workflows to govern movement, compliance screening on every transaction, and integration with existing treasury and payment systems. Utila provides that infrastructure layer - not as the deposit issuer, but as the platform that helps banks operationalize tokenized deposits securely and programmatically through MPC wallets, role-based governance, and API connectivity to internal systems.
How Utila Helps Banks Address Stablecoin Infrastructure Risks
While stablecoin adoption offers clear operational advantages across payments, treasury, and settlement, they also introduce a distinct risk profile that banks need to evaluate carefully. Understanding the risk landscape around stablecoins, and how significantly it has shifted over the past three years, is essential to managing that complexity at institutional scale.
Earlier institutional concerns around stablecoins focused primarily on the asset itself: reserve opacity, redemption uncertainty, and the possibility of depegging during market stress. These concerns were not completely unfounded.
For example, in March 2023, USDC lost its dollar peg and dropped to $0.87 after Circle, one of the biggest stablecoin issuers in the market, disclosed that $3.3 billion of its reserves - roughly 8% of the total backing USDC at the time - were held at the collapsing Silicon Valley Bank. The depeg triggered contagion across other stablecoins and a surge of redemption requests before the FDIC intervened to guarantee SVB depositors.
However, the stablecoin markets has matured significantly over the past few years and many of these concerns have been addressed well. Tether now publishes quarterly reserve attestations through BDO, a top-five global accounting firm, and holds over $141 billion in U.S. Treasury exposure as of Q4 2025 - with an excess reserve buffer exceeding $6 billion. Similarly, Circle publishes monthly reserve attestations verified by a Big Four firm and backs USDC entirely with cash and short-term Treasuries. And Regulated issuers like Paxos have expanded the range of institutional-grade stablecoin options.
Regulatory developments also helped stablecoins gain both recognition and trust of the finance industry. The GENIUS Act established the first comprehensive U.S. federal framework for payment stablecoin issuance - including reserve requirements, licensing standards, and provisions that allow approved bank-affiliated entities to issue stablecoins. In Europe, MiCA governs stablecoin issuance with specific requirements for reserves, licensing, and KYC procedures.
For banks, however, the more immediate and operationally complex risks now sit in the infrastructure layer: how stablecoins are held, moved, screened, approved, and reconciled within a bank-grade control environment.
Key management risk. Private key compromise remains the single largest source of loss in digital asset operations. Chainalysis reported that private key compromises accounted for roughly 44% of all stolen crypto in 2024. For banks, the risk extends beyond external attack to insider abuse, poor segregation of duties, and inadequate controls over transaction authorization.
Compliance execution risk. Screening failures, incomplete wallet and counterparty checks, and weak controls around sanctioned or tainted funds can expose a bank to regulatory action and reputational damage.
Cross-chain and interoperability risk. Stablecoin liquidity is fragmented across blockchain networks. Operating across multiple chains introduces exposure to bridge vulnerabilities, operational mistakes during cross-network transfers, and reconciliation gaps between on-chain activity and internal ledgers.
Counterparty and routing risk. Dependence on a small number of on/off-ramp providers, liquidity sources, or payout partners creates concentration risk that may not be visible until a provider fails or a corridor becomes unavailable.
Settlement and reconciliation risk. Tying onchain stablecoin movements back to treasury positions, core banking records, and audit trails requires dedicated infrastructure. Without it, discrepancies between onchain balances and internal ledgers can go undetected - a serious operational and compliance exposure.
Governance risk. Unclear approval rules, policy exceptions, and insufficient controls over who can move funds, where, and under what conditions create the kind of operational gaps that regulators and auditors will flag.
Utila helps banks and financial institutions address these risks proactively through four core mechanisms, all built on secure MPC wallet architecture:
MPC-based key architecture distributes private key material across multiple parties so that no single person or system ever holds a complete key - eliminating the single point of failure that underlies most key compromise incidents. Utila's MPC protocol has been audited by leading blockchain security firms.
Policy engine and governance controls enforce transaction limits, multi-step approval workflows, role-based permissions, address whitelisting, and segregation of duties before any transfer is broadcast to the blockchain - embedding institutional governance directly into the transaction flow.
Compliance connectivity with Chainalysis,TRM, and Eliptic provides real-time AML and sanctions screening on every transaction, automated flagging of tainted funds, and configurable risk thresholds - applied at the point of transfer rather than after settlement.
Multi-chain infrastructure spanning EVM chains, Solana, Tron, and other networks lets institutions operate wherever their clients and counterparties transact, managed from a single console with unified audit trails, reconciliation, and reporting across all chains.
Utila's customers include banks, PSPs, exchanges, custodians, and stablecoin issuers.With $200+ billion in total transaction volume processed through the platform, 250+ institutional customers across 30+ jurisdictions, and SOC 2 Type II compliance, we providee the production-grade digital assets infrastructure banks need to adopt stablecoins at scale, validated by a growing set of Utila customer stories and real-world impact.
What Banks Need to Get Started with Stablecoins
Banks do not need to launch every stablecoin use case at once. But whether the starting point is cross-border payments, treasury movement, FX conversion, or tokenized money flows, the underlying requirement is the same: infrastructure that allows stablecoin activity to operate inside a controlled banking environment. Institutions that delay building that foundation risk leaving the operational and commercial upside of stablecoins to fintechs and non-bank providers.
That foundation rests on three capabilities: secure wallet and key management, automated policy and compliance controls, and connectivity across networks, counterparties, and conversion rails. Without them, stablecoin activity remains a fragmented experiment. With them, it can become part of the bank’s existing payments, treasury, and client-service model.
This is where Utila fits. Utila provides the infrastructure layer banks need to move from isolated pilots to production-grade stablecoin operations: self-custodial MPC wallet architecture, policy-based governance, embedded compliance integrations, and the connectivity required to manage stablecoin flows across chains and jurisdictions within a single operating environment.
If your institution is assessing how to bring stablecoin capabilities into production, Utila can help you build the foundation first and expand from there. Contact our sales team to see how Utila can help your institution build the infrastructure needed to move from stablecoin evaluation to production.
FAQs
What are the main stablecoin use cases for banks?
Banks are deploying stablecoins across cross-border payments, treasury and liquidity management, B2B payment processing, merchant settlement, custody, and FX conversion. Cross-border payments and B2B processing carry the highest volume today, with a joint McKinsey–Artemis Analytics study reporting $226 billion in B2B stablecoin payments in 2025.
How do stablecoin payments differ from traditional bank payments?
Stablecoin payments settle on a blockchain in seconds or minutes, seven days a week, with low transaction costs and without requiring correspondent banks or batched settlement cycles. Traditional cross-border payments can take two to five business days depending on the corridor and route through multiple intermediaries. Stablecoins also provide full pre-transaction visibility into fees and timing.
What infrastructure do banks need for stablecoin operations?
Banks need three core layers: MPC-based wallet and key management for secure custody, a real-time policy and compliance engine for AML and sanctions screening, and multi-chain connectivity to operate across the blockchain networks where stablecoins are issued. Utila provides all three in an integrated platform built for institutional operations, with SOC 2 Type II compliance and native integrations with compliance providers including Chainalysis and TRM.
Are stablecoins regulated for bank use?
Yes. The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) entered into force in 2023, with key crypto-asset service provisions applying from 30 December 2024, establishing licensing, reserve, and compliance requirements for stablecoin issuers in Europe. In the United States, the GENIUS Act was signed into law in July 2025, creating the first comprehensive federal oversight framework for payment stablecoin issuance - including reserve requirements, licensing standards, and provisions for approved bank-affiliated entities to issue stablecoins.
What is the difference between stablecoins and tokenized deposits?
Stablecoins are bearer assets - typically issued by non-bank or bank-affiliated entities - that represent a claim on reserves held by the issuer. Tokenized deposits are a digital representation of a commercial bank deposit liability that remains on the bank's balance sheet. The distinction affects capital treatment, regulatory classification, deposit insurance eligibility, and whether the holder maintains a deposit relationship with a regulated bank. Both can operate on blockchain rails, but they carry different legal, regulatory, and balance sheet implications. Some banks are exploring both models in parallel.
Which banks are already using stablecoins?
Visa settles card transaction obligations with U.S. banking partners in USDC on Solana, with an annualized volume exceeding $3.5 billion as of late 2025. In Europe, Banking Circle issued EURI, a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin for B2B platforms and cross-border PSPs. A consortium of twelve European banks - including ING, UniCredit, BNP Paribas, and BBVA - formed Qivalis to launch a euro-pegged stablecoin in H2 2026. Several other major banks, including JP Morgan and BNY Mellon, are pursuing related capabilities through tokenized deposits rather than third-party stablecoins.
Can stablecoins support 24/7 treasury and liquidity movement?
Yes. Because stablecoins settle on blockchain networks that operate continuously, they enable treasury teams to move liquidity between entities, jurisdictions, and counterparties outside of traditional banking hours and cut-off windows. JP Morgan's Kinexys platform already supports 24/7 institutional settlement and liquidity movement using deposit tokens - demonstrating that always-on treasury operations are already operational inside major banks.
Do banks need to support multiple networks and issuers?
In practice, yes. Stablecoin liquidity is fragmented across blockchain networks - USDC and USDT are issued on Ethereum, Solana, Tron, and other chains, each with different liquidity profiles, transaction costs, and settlement characteristics. A bank serving clients across jurisdictions and use cases will likely need to operate across multiple networks and support more than one stablecoin issuer. This is one of the reasons multi-chain infrastructure with unified governance and reporting is a core requirement for institutional stablecoin operations.
Can stablecoins generate yield for banks or corporate clients?
Stablecoins can support yield-bearing structures, but the regulatory treatment varies significantly by jurisdiction and is not equivalent to a bank deposit. In Europe, MiCA prohibits the payment of interest on stablecoin holdings by issuers and crypto-asset service providers, which makes the distinction between stablecoin yield and deposit interest especially important for banks operating in or serving EU clients.
Do stablecoins reduce bank deposits and weaken bank lending?
Potentially, yes. If customers move meaningful balances from bank accounts into stablecoins, that can reduce bank deposits, which may in turn affect bank credit provision and bank lending capacity. That said, the scale and impact depend on how stablecoins are used, what replaces the lost funding, and how regulation evolves. The Federal Reserve System has noted that shifts out of deposits can matter for bank funding and credit creation, but the effect is not automatic or uniform across institutions.
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