Stablecoins have quickly become an integral part of the digital asset ecosystem with a market cap exceeding $270 billion in August of 2025 (Artemis) – demonstrating continued institutional adoption and regulatory acceptance. Stablecoins have the potential to revolutionize corporate treasury operations, offering transformative solutions to long-standing problems with liquidity management, cross-border payments, and operational efficiency.
For treasury professionals managing global liquidity, the value proposition is clear: 24/7/365 programmable money that operates outside traditional banking hours, eliminates pre-funding requirements, and enables real-time optimization of working capital.
The persistent treasury challenge: Trapped liquidity and operational complexity
Corporate treasury teams continue to deal with fundamental inefficiencies that have plagued international business for decades. Liquidity fragmentation remains the primary operational challenge, with treasury departments maintaining prefunded foreign currency accounts across multiple jurisdictions to ensure local currency availability for payouts. Industry estimates suggest that ~$4 trillion is locked up in prefunded foreign currency balances globally, which represents a huge opportunity cost for businesses, requiring continuous monitoring and rebalancing of cash positions across time zones. This is a labour-intensive process that is further hindered by cutoff times and forecasting inaccuracies.
Despite technological advances, multi-bank relationship complexity has intensified with treasury teams having to manage intricate networks of correspondent banks, each with distinct operational windows, fee structures, and compliance requirements. When foreign currency accounts run low late into or outside banking hours, treasury operations face forced delays until the next business day. This creates cash flow disruption and limits strategic agility.
A lack of payment transparency in these networks creates a significant operational burden. These traditional cross-border transfers involve multiple intermediaries, each adding fees and potential points of failure. The correspondent banking chain requires payment messages to pass local AML/KYC requirements at every stage, with each bank updating account balances and taking processing fees. This complexity increases substantially for less common currency pairs, where additional correspondent banks increase costs and settlement uncertainty.
Even with modern SWIFT GPI performance improvements, working capital inefficiencies continue to impact treasury operations. While 90% of international payments now reach beneficiary banks within one hour, the “last mile” to end-customer accounts often requires additional processing time, and deals with service interruptions during weekends and holidays. But, when dealing with complex currency pairs, largely when one currency is from an emerging market, SWIFT transfers still take up to five days to settle with increased costs. Treasury teams must maintain buffer liquidity to account for these variables, reducing overall capital efficiency.
At each bank in the payment flow, the following happens:
- Fees: Fees are taken for processing and foreign exchange
- Payment messages: The payment messages must pass local financial crime requirements
- Account rebalancing: Each bank has to accurately update the balances in the accounts of the incoming and outgoing payees
For the funds to move from one account to the other, the domestic payment systems for each must be accessed during normal business hours and the sender’s bank will have to hold enough cash to cover these unknown costs until the payment is complete.
Stablecoin infrastructure: Redefining treasury operations
Real-time liquidity orchestration – Stablecoins fundamentally transform liquidity management by enabling 24/7/365 transfers that operate independently of traditional banking infrastructure. This continuous availability allows treasury teams to optimize cash positions in real-time, responding instantly to market conditions or operations requirements without waiting for banking hours or settlement windows. Treasury teams can minimize pre-funding requirements by maintaining stablecoin reserves that convert to local currencies on-demand through instant payment rails. This approach directly reduces trapped liquidity while providing greater flexibility for hedging strategies and investment opportunities.
Programmable treasury automation – Stablecoins enable smart contract automations that execute predetermined treasury functions without manual intervention. Cash sweeps triggered by balance thresholds, supply chain finance payments activated by shipment confirmations, and automated FX hedging based on exposure limits represent fundamental shifts from reactive to proactive treasury management. Treasury teams are able to encode business logic directly into payment infrastructure, ensuring consistent execution of treasury policies regardless of time zones or staffing availability. The result is more predictable cash flow management and reduced operational risk.
Enhanced transparency and control – Blockchain-based stablecoin transactions provide end-to-end visibility that traditional payment infrastructure cannot match. Both senders and receivers can track transactions in real-time, eliminating the uncertainty that characterizes correspondent banking transfers. This further enables comprehensive audit trails that automatically capture transaction details, timestamps, and blockchain confirmations. Treasury teams gain unprecedented insight into payment flows, enabling more accurate cash flow forecasting and streamlined reconciliation processes.
The business impact of stablecoins – ROI framework for treasury transformation
Enterprise implementations of stablecoin have a direct cost reduction that is consistent across multiple operational areas:
- Transaction fees: Up to 80% fee reduction compared to traditional wire transfers
- FX spread: Improved pricing through direct market access and reduced intermediary fees
- Operational overhead: Up to 70% reduction in manual work
- Error remediation: Significant decrease in failed transaction costs due to blockchain settlement finality
Stablecoin treasury operations deliver measurable improvements in capital efficiency:
- Settlement acceleration: Minutes versus hours or days, improving cash conversion cycles
- Reduced float: Elimination of funds in transit during settlement windows
- Capital requirements: Up to 66% improvement in working capital efficiency through reduced pre-funding needs
- Yield optimization: Access to decentralized finance protocols for treasury surplus management
Treasury teams report substantial productivity improvements following stablecoin implementations:
- Process automation: 24/7/365 automated execution of treasury processes
- Reconciliation efficiency: Real-time blockchain data eliminates manual matching processes
- Exception handling: Reduced manual intervention requirements for standard treasury operations
- Strategic capacity: Staff time is freed up and redirected from operational to strategic tasks
Improving regulatory clarity across markets
As stablecoin adoption continues to grow, regulators are continuing to develop frameworks to ensure stability and adequate consumer protections. This is not yet global which is a challenge that needs to be overcome.
In the US, The GENIUS Act, which was signed into law in July 2025, establishes comprehensive federal oversight. This regulatory framework for payment stablecoins includes key provisions including: requiring 100% reserve backing and licensing through either federal regulators (OCC) or certified state regimes, comprehensive AML/KYC compliance, monthly audit requirements, and the prohibition of interest on payments to stablecoin holders in order to maintain focus on payment functionality.
Globally, the EU has established the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework that requires stricter reserve management and operational transparency with mandatory quarterly attestations. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) consultation process is ongoing – the FCA published consultation papers in May 2025 outlining proposed stablecoin regulation, with final rules expected in 2026. And in Hong Kong, their stablecoin licensing regime has been effective as of August 2025 for fiat-backed stablecoins and requires authorized institution status for stablecoin providers.
Ultimately these multi-jurisdictional requirements create compliance complexity and operational challenges. Each jurisdiction may have different licensing and operational requirements, in particular for AML/KYC requirements. Additionally, using third parties stablecoin providers does not eliminate the underlying compliance responsibilities.
Implementation framework – Strategic adoption for treasury teams
In order for treasury teams to begin using stablecoins, enterprises need to take a measured and systematic approach:
Phase 1 – A thorough infrastructure assessment, compliance framework development, and pilot program should be conducted. Key items in this phase include but are not limited to a technical infrastructure evaluation that looks at API integration capabilities, AML/KYC integration with existing compliance systems, and planned implementation with a limited scope on a specific use case (i.e. single currency corridor). Typically this phase should take up to six months.
Phase 2 – This kicks off operational scaling and process integration with core focuses on workflow automation, multi-rail payment orchestration, and team training and change management. In this phase, enterprises hone in on smart contract programmability for routine treasury function, identify cross-chain capability requirements for different stablecoin networks, and update policies and procedures for stablecoin treasury management. This phase generally takes six to twelve months.
Phase 3 – Treasury teams look for strategic optimization and advanced treasury automation capabilities. Teams will focus on cross-border liquidity management, automated hedging strategies, additional transaction automations with smart contract triggers, and direct integrations with suppliers and customers. This is an ongoing process in which internal policies align business outcomes and customer expectations to constantly optimize treasury processes.
Throughout this implementation process, treasury teams must ensure effective risk management and operational resilience through technical risk mitigation and proactive regulatory and compliance risk assessments. By establishing infrastructure security, operational continuity, cross-jurisdictional compliance, and counterparty risk management, enterprises can sensibly implement stablecoin payments infrastructure.
Future outlook
Stablecoins represent the emergence of programmable money infrastructure that aligns with the 24/7 global economy. For treasury professionals, this technology offers solutions to persistent challenges – trapped liquidity, operational complexity, and limited automation capabilities – while enabling new strategic possibilities through programmable payments.
The implementation framework outlined above provides a structured approach for treasury teams to capture these benefits while managing associated risks. By starting with focused pilot programs and scaling systematically, treasury departments can transform their operations without disrupting business continuity.
The convergence of regulatory clarity, infrastructure maturity, and enterprise adoption creates an optimal environment for stablecoin treasury implementation in 2025. Treasury teams that act decisively to implement these capabilities will position their organizations for sustained competitive advantage.
The future of corporate treasury management is programmable, automated, and globally optimized. Stablecoins provide the technological foundation to achieve this vision while maintaining the security, compliance, and reliability that enterprise treasury operations demand.