Mind the gap: the geographic reality of stablecoin payments

Where do stablecoins actually win? Worldline experts Thibault Pelé and Peter Romaniuk reveal why the value proposition changes based on geography and regulation.

Not all rails are broken

The first honest conversation about stablecoins is geographic. Their value isn’t universal; in Europe, for instance, the landscape is fundamentally different. With SEPA Instant already providing near-zero cost payments in seconds, the bar is high. For stablecoins to win, they must pivot toward corridors where traditional rails remain slow, expensive, and opaque.

However, the story changes outside Europe. On corridors connecting Europe to LATAM, Africa, or APAC, traditional rails remain slow, expensive, and opaque. From Spain to Colombia, a transfer might take five days, pass through two correspondent banks, and carry fees exceeding 2 - 3%. Even closer to home, World Bank data shows remittances between Turkey and Bulgaria remain among the most expensive globally. This is where stablecoins become genuinely interesting, not as a universal upgrade, but as a targeted solution where legacy infrastructure fails.

Markets are noticing this shift. Nexus Global Payments, formed by Central Banks and Instant Payment Systems (IPS) operators in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand are aiming to interlink domestic IPS. Instead of forcing a new digital asset, Nexus acts as a universal translation layer connecting regional champions like India’s UPI and Singapore’s FAST. When this scales, a fiat payment from Spain to Malaysia will travel from the European instant rail, through the Nexus hub, into the recipient’s local rail, matching the speed of modern blockchains.

Where stablecoins actually win

Stablecoins offer opportunities beyond simple cross-border settlement. We see major gains in three areas:

Cross-border supplier payments: A European importer paying manufacturers in Vietnam or Nigeria can settle in USDC within minutes, bypassing correspondent banking. The treasurer gets real-time transparency, while the supplier gets same-day liquidity, which is an appealing upgrade for regions that prefer holding USD.

Multi-currency treasury management: Companies operating across jurisdictions increasingly hold a portion of their treasury natively in USDC or USDT.

Programmatic payments: Marketplaces and SaaS businesses are exploring smart contract-based payments triggered by specific events. With the rise of agentic AI, payments can no longer rely on inefficient legacy rails if we are to unlock the full value of this technology.

The cost nobody talks about: on-ramp and off-ramp

If the promise is so bright, why haven’t stablecoins taken over? The catch lies in conversion. Moving money into a stablecoin (on-ramp) and back into local fiat (off-ramp) isn’t free. Depending on the provider, corridor, and volume, fees range from 0.5% to over 2% per leg. On a round trip, you can easily spend 1% to 4% in conversion costs alone, a major issue for businesses with tight margins.

For this to work economically, at least one party must hold stablecoins natively. Recognising this friction, the industry is shifting. Initiatives like the Circle Payments Network (CPN) act as a global orchestration layer connecting financial institutions directly. By creating a competitive wholesale marketplace for on/off-ramps, networks like CPN aim to crush the spread. However, any honest assessment of stablecoin economics today must include the full on/off-ramp cost, not just the blockchain’s transaction fee.

The operational realities

Beyond economics, payment teams face operational complexities. KYC, AML, and Travel Rule obligations remain. Adapting traditional transaction monitoring to on-chain flows and integrating blockchain analytics is a novel challenge.

Fragmentation is also real. USDC, USDT, and EURC are each deployed across multiple blockchains, yet liquidity remains scattered. Not all corridors support all stablecoins efficiently. Issuers are making progress in interoperability, such as Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), which moves USDC across blockchains without costly bridges. Still, choosing the wrong stablecoin/blockchain combination can introduce slippage, delays, or counterparty risk.

A geographically selective revolution

Stablecoins are not a universal upgrade, but a powerful tool for specific corridors and operational contexts. This diversity is the foundation of their long-term value. The industry’s job is to match the right capability to the right problem, market by market.

For payment players with deep roots in traditional rails, this is an expansion of the toolkit, not a threat. The institutions that will lead the next chapter understand both worlds well enough to know when to use which. They won’t replace one narrative with another; they will bring the infrastructure and trust to make stablecoins work where they genuinely should.

That is where the real opportunity lies, and it starts with asking the right questions.

This editorial is part of the Global Stablecoins Report 2026. Explore how stablecoins are moving from hype to utility for banks, merchants, and fintechs.

About Thibault Pelé

 

Thibault Pelé is Global Head of Virtual Asset and Tokenized Payment for Worldline, leading strategic initiatives across stablecoins and central bank digital currencies. He contributed to notorious projects and a working group with banks, regulators, and fintechs on emerging payment rails. Thibault combines deep technical knowledge with strong product and business expertise and also lectures at a prominent French school on the future of payments.

 

About Peter Romaniuk

 

Peter Romaniuk is a Product Manager at Worldline with over 15 years of experience in payments and transaction banking. He specialises in bridging traditional European payment rails with emerging digital asset infrastructure, focusing on stablecoins, tokenization, and future settlement models.

 

About Worldline

 

Worldline [Euronext: WLN] is Europe's leading operator of critical infrastructure and payment services. With a presence across the entire value chain, the Group offers its customers unique expertise in processing and securing their payments, thereby promoting their growth. Worldline is leveraging its 2030 strategic plan and its technological innovation capabilities to build the European reference payment partner for merchants and financial institutions. With over 1.2 million customers, Worldline achieved EUR 4bn in revenue in 2025.