From crypto to infrastructure: Stablecoins kill correspondent bank latency

For a long time, stablecoins were primarily viewed as a "byproduct" of the crypto industry. Their main function was to efficiently and cost-effectively "park" liquidity from crypto transactions. Today, however, a fundamental shift is taking place: stablecoins are increasingly evolving from a crypto product into a core component of the payment infrastructure of the future.

The reasons for this lie not only in new technological possibilities but also in structural weaknesses of existing financial systems.

International payments still rely on complex correspondent banking networks that have grown over decades. Cross-border transactions often require a large number of intermediaries, incur high costs, are frequently opaque, and tie up significant liquidity.

At the same time, businesses and consumers have long expected speed. They ask themselves: “If I can send a photo or document to anyone around the globe in seconds, why does it take so long to send money from A to B?”

This is precisely where stablecoins come in. They enable the transfer of money around the clock, almost in real time, and independently of existing payment systems. This creates new opportunities for international payments, treasury management, and liquidity control.

Instead of holding capital across different bank accounts and jurisdictions, companies will be able to use programmable digital currency infrastructures in the future, which can make transactions and settlement significantly more efficient and automated.

One key advantage is that stablecoins are based on so-called distributed ledgers – often also called blockchains.

For example, if a digital asset such as a bond, stock, or money market fund is transferred via the blockchain, efficient settlement also requires blockchain-based money that enables these transactions to be carried out step by step and in real time. This is where stablecoins come into play.

Stablecoins and their development

This development also explains why the discussion surrounding stablecoins is conducted differently today than it was a few years ago. While the debate long revolved around a lack of regulation, a different question has now taken center stage: How can stablecoins be integrated into existing financial systems?

Regulatory clarity has now been achieved in Europe – and likely soon in the US. With the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation in Europe and new regulatory initiatives in the US – such as the CLARITY and GENIUS Acts – a robust framework for the issuance and use of regulated stablecoins is emerging for the first time. Transparency, reserve holding, risk management, and compliance are becoming increasingly standardized. This is also changing the perceptions of institutional market participants.

Stablecoins are no longer viewed as a crypto product, but increasingly as a potential infrastructure component of modern financial markets.

This trend is already evident in the activities of major financial players. Banks, payment service providers, asset managers, and capital market infrastructures are increasingly investing in blockchain-based settlement and tokenization solutions. At the same time, the importance of tokenized real-world assets is growing. Money market funds, bonds, and other financial instruments are increasingly being digitally represented and made tradable on blockchain networks. And, as mentioned, blockchain-based payment options such as stablecoins offer significant advantages for payment processing.

The development in connection with artificial intelligence is particularly interesting. While today's payment systems were designed for human users, in the future autonomous software agents could independently make economic decisions, procure services, or acquire digital resources. Traditional payment infrastructures are only partially suitable for such "agentic payments."

Stablecoins are creating new opportunities. They enable automated, real-time payments, support micropayments - including those made by agents - and are available 24/7. We believe we are only at the beginning of an era of agentic commerce and agentic payments. An era in which agents will take on new roles - including autonomously making payments. Major payment providers like Stripe, Worldline, Checkout.com, etc., are investing heavily in this area and have presented corresponding solutions. However, existing payment infrastructures are reaching their limits. Stablecoins, for example, make it possible to equip an agent with a relatively efficient "account" so it can participate in the digital economy without intermediaries.

The future of the financial system: Neither purely traditional nor purely “crypto-native”

It is becoming increasingly clear that the future of the financial system will be neither purely traditional nor purely "crypto-native." Instead, a hybrid financial ecosystem is gradually emerging, in which regulated financial institutions and public blockchain infrastructures, on which stablecoins reside, are merging.

The transformation lies not in displacing existing systems, but in modernizing them. As is typical with successful infrastructure technologies, the success of stablecoins could lie precisely in becoming invisible to end users, so that they wouldn't even be aware that stablecoins are involved in a payment. In the future, users won't think about the technology working in the background, much like with the internet or email today. They will simply expect that money can be transferred quickly, securely, and efficiently worldwide.

This is precisely where the long-term significance of stablecoins could be revealed: not as an alternative to the existing financial system, but as its next stage of evolution.