Can stablecoins fix cross-border payments? Industry experts weigh in

Cross-border payments remain slow, costly, and fragmented across most corridors. Stablecoins are increasingly positioned as a faster, always-on settlement layer that could ease some of that friction, though not all of it.

Mirela Ciobanu, Lead Editor with The Paypers, reports on the key takeaways from a recent webinar on the topic.

At the end of June, The Paypers gathered David Núñez Corona, Consultant at PaymentGenes, Professor Cumhur Coşkun Küçüközmen, Professor of Finance at Izmir University of Economics, Maurício Magaldi, Founder, Producer and Host of the BlockDrops Podcast, and Estelle Brack, PhD, Founder and Chairwoman of KiraliT Advisory, for a webinar on stablecoins in cross-border payment flows. The panel discussed:

• Where cross-border payments stand today and why major inefficiencies persist;
• The G20 objectives for improving international payments
• Whether stablecoins compete with initiatives like the G20 roadmap, SWIFT modernisation, and real-time payment networks, or complement them;
• Which payment corridors face the greatest structural challenges
• Where stablecoins can deliver meaningful improvements, and where they may not be necessary;
• How stablecoins are reshaping remittances, ecommerce, pay-ins and payouts;
• How regulation in the US, Asia, and Latin America is influencing the future of this market.

Cross-border payments have improved, but the webinar made clear that the industry is still contending with old frictions in new forms. The central issue is no longer only messaging speed or front-end user experience. It is the harder problem of coordinating compliance, liquidity, operating hours, and trust across jurisdictions. Stablecoins may help at the settlement layer, particularly by reducing idle capital and enabling always-on value transfer. Still, they do not remove the regulatory, monetary, and governance questions that sit underneath global payments.
For those who missed the webinar, we recommend accessing it on demand here. Below are some of the highlights from the panel discussion.

Cross-border friction is now a coordination problem

One of the clearest themes from the discussion was that progress in cross-border payments should not be mistaken for resolution. The market has seen genuine investment in faster payment systems, ISO 20022 migration, orchestration layers, and the G20 roadmap. Yet corporates still report the same operational pain points: cost, delayed settlement, weak transparency, and too many handoffs.

Why speed alone has not solved the problem

The panel's explanation was straightforward. Technology has advanced faster than institutional coordination. Estelle Brack pointed to a SWIFT statistic showing that 25% of payments on the network now reach beneficiary banks within ten minutes, but argued that this masks a more uneven reality, particularly in corridors involving Africa and other markets where access to international banking remains constrained. In those environments, delays are still driven by regulatory reporting, exchange controls, limited access to hard currency and uneven digitisation.

That diagnosis matters because it reframes the problem. Cross-border payments are not slow only because of poor rails. They are slow because the payment has to survive a chain of checks, interpretations, batch systems, and local operating rules before it can settle. Maurício Magaldi reinforced this point, arguing that efficiency is not simply a function of available technology. Even when the core transfer is fast, a payment can still be delayed by a closed local bank, an overnight batch cycle, or additional compliance review. Costs also remain inflated by the documentation and risk controls needed to demonstrate that a payment is legitimate.

This is why the panel repeatedly returned to the limits of legacy correspondent banking. It is not merely old; it is structurally fragmented. There is no single, shared infrastructure behind it, only a network of institutions with different systems, risk appetites and legal obligations. From that perspective, the industry may still be some distance from truly instant international payments at scale, regardless of improvements in front-end speed.

Banks will move only when the economics justify it

A second important takeaway was that banks will move only when the economics justify it. In the Q&A, Maurício observed that banks generally invest when driven by compliance, new revenue, or cost efficiency. That suggests the future shape of cross-border modernisation will be determined less by abstract enthusiasm for innovation and more by whether new models can improve margin, reduce operational risk, or satisfy regulators more effectively than current ones.

Stablecoins matter as infrastructure, not as a universal answer

The webinar's most useful distinction was the one between stablecoins as a payment method and stablecoins as settlement infrastructure. Maurício argued that the more accurate framing is the latter. That is a meaningful shift. It places stablecoins not in the category of customer-facing payment novelty, but in the back-end category of liquidity movement, treasury efficiency, and programmable transfer.

The business case: continuous, 24/7 capital movement

On that basis, the strongest business case discussed was the ability to move capital continuously, 24/7, without the idle holding periods common in conventional cross-border settlement. When funds no longer need to sit trapped for two or three days between counterparties, the gain is not just faster movement. It is balance sheet efficiency for high-volume businesses that can be commercially significant.

Still, the panel was careful not to overstate the case. Stablecoins do not eliminate the compliance burden that surrounds a transaction. Nor do they remove the foreign exchange challenge at the point where value has to move on or off chain into local banking systems. If a corridor remains dependent on US dollar-denominated stablecoins, someone still has to absorb currency risk, manage liquidity across weekends and decide where conversion into local currency takes place.

The dollarisation question

This is where the discussion broadened into politics and monetary sovereignty. The market for stablecoins remains heavily dollar-denominated, far more so than the broader off-chain payments world. That creates a structural asymmetry. For users in countries with weak currencies or capital restrictions, dollar-backed stablecoins can be an attractive store of value and transfer mechanism. Yet the same dynamic can intensify what the panel described as digital dollarisation.

Maurício drew a useful distinction here between dependency and contamination. In his view, the bigger risk is not simply that people use a stronger foreign currency, but that private digital money backed by another country's debt begins to shape domestic economic behaviour beyond the reach of local monetary policy. Estelle took a firmer line, arguing that for the moment the answer is yes: widespread adoption of foreign currency stablecoins can increase dependence on the US dollar in emerging markets.

Coexistence, not replacement

That concern helps explain why the discussion did not frame the future as a winner-takes-all contest between stablecoins, CBDCs and tokenised deposits. Instead, the panel converged on coexistence. Cumhur Coşkun Küçüközmen argued that the real challenge is coordinated trust across legal, regulatory, and monetary jurisdictions, not simply moving messages or money faster. He linked this to BIS work and initiatives such as Project Agora, which seek interoperability between tokenised commercial bank money and central bank reserves while preserving monetary sovereignty.

The implication is that the real transformation in payments may not be the replacement of one instrument by another. It may be the redesign of infrastructure so that different forms of digital money can interoperate safely. In that world, standards, shared language, governance, and regulatory coordination become more important than yet another round of product innovation.

The bottom line

The webinar ended on a measured note. Stablecoins have clearly exposed demand for programmable, always-on financial infrastructure. They may become an important component of cross-border payments, especially where existing systems are expensive, exclusionary or poorly connected. But mainstream adoption will depend on something less glamorous than speed: the industry's ability to align policy, infrastructure and trust across borders.

About author

Mirela Ciobanu is Lead Editor at The Paypers, bridging the knowledge gap between TradFi and DeFi. With a keen eye for industry trends, she is constantly on the lookout for the latest developments in crypto and blockchain. Closely in contact with subject matter experts in the digital assets space, Mirela amplifies your voice through compelling interviews, webinars, reports, and articles.

To share more ideas and get inspired, connect with Mirela on LinkedIn or reach out via email at mirelac@thepaypers.com.