How Stablecoins Can Become the Backbone of Our Financial System

Stablecoins have moved far beyond their crypto-native origins. What began as a trading instrument on exchanges is now increasingly discussed in boardrooms of banks, payment service providers, and global enterprises.

In this episode, we sat down with Geetha Panchapakesan, Co-Founder of Tesser, and one of the most experienced operators in cross-border payments. With a career spanning Mastercard, MoneyGram, PayPal, Visa Direct, and Circle, Geetha has spent decades building global payment rails. Her perspective is not theoretical. It is operational.

And that distinction matters.

From Financial Inclusion to Financial Infrastructure

Geetha’s journey into stablecoins began with prepaid cards and remittances.

Across Mastercard, MoneyGram, and PayPal, one recurring reality became clear: global money movement is fundamentally constrained by correspondent banking relationships. Moving money across borders means negotiating accounts, managing liquidity in multiple jurisdictions, and stitching together fragmented infrastructure.

Stablecoins, in her view, weren’t a speculative breakthrough. They were a structural one.

“It’s not just a messaging layer and a settlement layer anymore. The value moves with the instrument.”

That shift - collapsing messaging and settlement into one native digital asset - reframes what money movement can look like.

Why Adoption Is Accelerating Now

Stablecoins have been “coming” for years. So why the renewed urgency?

Several forces converged:

• Gradual regulatory clarity across Singapore, Europe, the UAE, and the U.S.

• Competitive pressure among payment providers

• Maturation of compliance tooling and custody solutions

• And especially Institutional signaling events (such as major acquisitions in the space like Stripe buying Bridge)

For many banks, the internal dialogue has shifted from:

“Does this matter?”

to

“How do we implement this safely and competitively?”

Importantly, adoption is not being driven by retail demand. End users are not demanding stablecoins at checkout. This is an efficiency play.

As institutions lower their internal costs using stablecoin rails, competitive pressure will push others to follow. Over time, cost advantages may reach end users - even if they never realize stablecoins are involved.

Like the internet itself, the backend evolves before the interface changes.

The Real Implementation Gap

Wanting a stablecoin strategy is very different from shipping one.

Banks today are built around accounts. Stablecoin infrastructure is built around wallets, keys, tokens, gas management, and on-chain compliance.

That means institutions face multiple new layers simultaneously:

• Custody and key management models (MPC, TEE, third-party custody)

• On- and off-ramp liquidity provisioning

• Token and chain selection strategy

• On-chain AML and wallet screening

• Gas management and transaction optimization

• Treasury reporting and reconciliation across fiat and blockchain systems

And critically:

All of it must integrate into existing ERP, treasury, and compliance frameworks.

A bank serving a corporate client must still provide a unified reporting view, regardless of whether payments were executed via wire, ACH, or USDC.

Stablecoins don’t eliminate operational accountability. They introduce a new operational paradigm. That gap is what slows institutions down.

Enabling, Not Replacing, Banks

Many early stablecoin platforms positioned themselves as alternatives to banks.

Geetha’s approach differs.

Rather than disintermediate financial institutions, the goal is to enable them to add stablecoins as another payment rail - alongside cards, wires, ACH, SEPA, PIX, or UPI.

In that framing, stablecoins are not disruptive. They are additive.

There is also a second-order opportunity:

Banks in high-receive jurisdictions can become regulated off-ramp providers. Instead of liquidity being handled primarily by crypto exchanges, regulated institutions could absorb inbound stablecoin flows - strengthening trust and integrating stablecoins into mainstream financial infrastructure. Stablecoins, in this sense, become less about crypto and more about modernization.

What Will Determine the Winners?

The answer isn’t simple. There is unlikely to be a single winner-takes-all variable.

Distribution matters today because on- and off-ramps are the friction point. But distribution may increasingly embed itself within the existing financial system as banks participate directly.

Compliance and on-chain identity will matter because institutional comfort depends on risk transparency. Cross-chain operability, gas optimization, and privacy-preserving identity systems will continue evolving.

Stablecoins are not a feature race.They are a systems integration race, and systems races rarely have simple outcomes.

From Technology to Financial Plumbing

Perhaps the clearest insight from the conversation is this:

Stablecoins are no longer a question of ideology. They are a question of plumbing.

If stablecoins become the backbone of the financial system, it will not be because consumers demanded them at checkout.

It will be because financial institutions gradually embedded them into treasury operations, cross-border corridors, and liquidity management frameworks - until they simply became the most efficient way to move value.

And when infrastructure works well enough, it becomes invisible.

In that scenario, stablecoins won’t feel revolutionary. They’ll feel normal, and that may be the strongest signal of all.

If you would like to listen to the full conversation with Geetha Panchapakesan, Jonathan Knoll and Dr. Jonas Gross, you can find the complete episode of Bitcoin, Fiat and Rock’n’Roll here.

Geetha and Tesser will be presenting a workshop at the Digital Euro Conference in Frankfurt on March 26th. 

And do reach out to us if you would like to discuss this exciting topic in more detail.