For decades, companies moving money internationally have accepted a frustrating bargain: transfers that take days, fees buried in currency spreads and a chain of intermediary banks that each add cost and delay. That bargain is now being challenged. Stablecoins, digital tokens pegged to currencies such as the US dollar, are emerging as a serious alternative for cross-border payments, and a wave of new regulation is giving corporate treasurers the confidence to take them seriously.
The argument that the old system is ripe for disruption has been made forcefully in an opinion piece published by World Finance by Anna Kratky Štrébl, chief executive of Confirmo Group, a regulated stablecoin payments provider. Her case is clearly shaped by her company’s commercial interests, but it draws on independent research and real industry moves that deserve a closer look.
The Hidden Cost of Traditional Cross-Border Payments
Consultancy Oliver Wyman estimates that businesses collectively pay around $120bn a year simply to move money across borders. That figure captures the visible fees, but the true cost is wider. Multi-day settlement ties up working capital, foreign exchange spreads are often opaque, and each correspondent bank in the chain introduces another point where a payment can stall or be questioned.
The correspondent banking model persisted largely because there was no credible alternative operating at scale. Initiatives such as SWIFT’s gpi tracking service and various real-time payment schemes have improved speed and transparency in recent years, yet the underlying architecture still runs on banking hours, national cut-off times and layers of reconciliation.
Small and mid-sized firms often feel the pain most acutely. Large multinationals can negotiate better rates and maintain local bank accounts in many markets, but smaller exporters and online sellers typically absorb the full cost of each transfer. For them, cheaper and faster cross-border payments are not a technical upgrade but a direct boost to margins and cash flow.
What Stablecoins Change
Stablecoin rails work differently. Because they run on public or permissioned blockchains, they operate around the clock, including weekends and holidays. Settlement can be completed in seconds rather than days, and smart-contract functionality means payment terms can be programmed, for instance releasing funds automatically once goods are confirmed as delivered.
For an exporter waiting on receivables from several continents, or a platform paying thousands of suppliers in different countries, those features translate into faster access to cash, fewer reconciliation headaches and potentially lower foreign exchange losses. Firms already using these rails report measurable efficiency gains, according to the Confirmo chief executive, although detailed independent data on those gains remains limited.
The Growth Forecasts Behind the Hype
Market researchers expect rapid expansion. Juniper Research forecasts that business-to-business cross-border payments settled in stablecoins will reach $5trn by 2035, implying growth of roughly 400 times from today’s base. It also predicts that international B2B activity will account for around 85 percent of all stablecoin transaction value by that date, a striking shift for an asset class long associated with crypto trading.
Corporate demand appears to be building. Research from EY-Parthenon found that 81 percent of corporates consider bank support for stablecoins critical or important, and that more than half of enterprises not yet using them expect to adopt within six to 12 months. Those figures suggest that companies want stablecoin capability delivered through trusted banking relationships rather than as a standalone experiment.
Forecasts of this kind should always be treated with caution. Long-range projections depend heavily on regulatory outcomes, interest rate conditions and the pace at which banks integrate the technology. Still, the direction of travel is clear.
Regulation Moves From Obstacle to Enabler
The biggest change over the past two years has been legal clarity. In the United States, the GENIUS Act, passed in 2025, created a federal framework for payment stablecoins, setting reserve and supervision standards for issuers. A broader market-structure bill, the CLARITY Act, is still being debated in the Senate.
In Europe, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, known as MiCA, is fully in force. More than 40 crypto-asset service providers had been licensed by March 2026, and the transitional grandfathering period ended on 1 July 2026. Firms without full authorisation had to cease European operations on that date, with no grace period. That deadline has effectively split the market into licensed providers and everyone else.
For corporate users, this matters enormously. Treasury departments and compliance teams are reluctant to route payments through providers whose legal status could change overnight. A licensed perimeter gives them a basis for due diligence, audit trails and counterparty risk assessment.
Big Names Signal a Shift to Mainstream
Established companies are moving in. Buy-now-pay-later group Klarna has built its own dollar-pegged stablecoin, while Western Union, one of the oldest names in international money transfer, has committed to launching a stablecoin on the Solana blockchain. These moves show that stablecoins are migrating from speculative trading venues into the plumbing of mainstream payments.
They also raise competitive pressure on banks. If payment firms and fintechs can offer near-instant, low-cost settlement, banks risk losing transaction flows unless they offer comparable services themselves, which helps explain why corporate clients are pressing their banks for stablecoin support.
Choosing a Provider: What Businesses Should Weigh
For companies with significant international flows, the debate is shifting from whether to use stablecoin rails to which provider to trust. Regulatory authorisation is now a minimum requirement rather than a selling point. Beyond that, businesses should examine whether a provider can handle high volumes, operate across multiple jurisdictions, comply with differing national rules and integrate cleanly with existing enterprise resource planning and treasury systems.
Risks remain. Stablecoins depend on the quality and transparency of their reserves, blockchain networks can suffer outages, and converting tokens back into local currency still requires reliable banking partners. Companies will also need clear accounting and tax treatment in every market where they operate.
Conclusion
Stablecoins are unlikely to replace correspondent banking overnight, but the combination of clear rules, institutional backing and genuine cost savings has changed the conversation. For businesses that move money internationally, cross-border payments are entering a new phase, and those that prepare early, while choosing partners carefully, are likely to capture the efficiency gains first.
