Stable coins cannot be scaled up without bank support

The fate of stablecoins: Not to bypass banks, but to delve into them.

stablecoins were originally expected to bypass the traditional banking system. However, the fact is that the companies driving its scale are building deeper banking infrastructure than anything previously predicted.

Stripe acquired Bridge, whose core product is coordinating interbank business, for US$1.1 billion. Citi is launching a crypto-asset custody service; Standard Chartered is testing stablecoin settlement in Singapore. As institutional transaction volume advances step by step, operators eventually settle on the same architecture.

The "three legs" of corporate cross-border payment

Corporate cross-border payment consists of three key links:

• Payment end: The payer's funds flow through the local clearing channel in local currency. For example, Brazilian importers pay the Brazilian Real (BRL) through the Pix system.
  
• Payroll: The payee receives funds in local currency. For example, suppliers collect U.S. dollars in their accounts.
  
• Intermediate links: This is a critical step in transferring value from one institution across borders to another.
  

In the past, this intermediate link relied on a network of correspondent banks: SWIFT messages jumped between intermediary banks, each bank held an account at the next bank, adding an additional day and a fee to each level. However, when both institutions accept stablecoins, this link can be settled in seconds on the chain. However, banks still control the first two aspects.

This is where the division of labor lies: stablecoins are responsible for the intermediate stages of settlement. Every flow of money still begins and ends in fiat, and this is where banks are irreplaceable-they are the point of entry, compliance anchors, and the local clearing infrastructure in every market the payments touch. Companies that rely on the stablecoin track to expand are embedding themselves into the banking system corridor by corridor and layer by layer.

Scale reveals the truth: Fiat currency is the cornerstone

Every corporate payment process starts with a bank account. Payroll payments, supplier invoices, customer income and capital allocations all exist in legal tender and are circulated through regulated financial infrastructure. Regardless of what technology the payment provider prefers, sending and receiving parties retain this infrastructure.

The gap in size makes this view concrete and clear. According to FXC Intelligence, the cross-border payment market will reach US$208 trillion in 2025. As of the end of 2025, McKinsey and Artemis data show that the annualized scale of real stablecoin payments is approximately US$390 billion, accounting for only approximately 0.02% of total global payments (including cross-border and domestic flows). Those headline-level stablecoin "transaction volume" of US$30 trillion or more per year mainly reflects robot transactions, internal capital flows and automated transactions, rather than actual payment behavior. The fund management departments of hedge funds, the companies that pay salaries across thirty countries, and the exchanges that process institutional withdrawals all start from legal tender.

The core question raised by these operators is: What banking infrastructure can be reliably connected to which settlement tracks? Who has built a deep enough architecture to carry institutional transaction volume? Most stablecoin companies have difficulty giving satisfactory answers.

The bottleneck is not technology, but at the banking level

When the annual payment scale is US$50 million, a banking relationship, a stablecoin issuer and a compliance level are enough to cope with it. But when the scale reaches US$500 million, traffic exceeds their capabilities. When it reaches $10 billion, the question is no longer how advanced the technology is, but how many corridor lines your bank, foreign exchange and license combination can actually carry. Traffic follows infrastructure.

Brazil's model confirms this rule. Pix, the country's instant payment system, processed more than 35 trillion reais (approximately US$6.3 trillion) in transaction volume in 2025. According to central bank classification, B2B transactions account for 47% of the value. At the institutional level, BRL settlement, local channel access and foreign exchange infrastructure become necessities.

Each level requires years of relationships with banks, regulators and local counterparties. The stablecoin mechanism itself works well, but growth often stagnates in regulated fiat-cryptocurrency bridges, multi-corridor bank stacks, and foreign exchange infrastructure that handles large-scale multi-currency conversions. The bottleneck for companies that hit ceilings in mid-size is almost never the encryption layer, but the banking layer they have never built well.

Single bank dependence is the biggest operational risk

Single bank dependence is currently the most underestimated operational risk in the crypto payments field. Most companies using the stablecoin track rely on a single banking partner.

Banks often exit fintech and crypto projects without warning. They will withdraw certain corridor lines after a regulatory shift. When management changes or compliance reviews result poorly, they reassess risk appetite. Recent history provides evidence: Silvergate's liquidation, Signature Bank's takeover, and Coinbase's subsequent FDIC "suspension letters" obtained through a public records application all demonstrate the same pattern. In March 2026, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued formal warning letters to PayPal, Stripe, Visa and Mastercard about "debanking" as part of a broader federal effort dating back to an executive order in August 2025.

For companies with a single bank counterparty, losing the relationship means an immediate shutdown. The solution is viable bank depth. This means multiple regulated connections, redundant channel access, and a compliance architecture that meets the requirements of all operating jurisdictions. This foundation requires an investment of time and money to build and provides protection if a demon-level setup crashes.

Compliance is not a friction, but a threshold

Crypto-native instincts often view compliance as friction and banks as legacy costs. This concept survives in the small-scale stage, when the counterparties are retail users. But this framework no longer exists when counterparties become chief financial officers (CFOs) of multinational companies, funding teams of global funds, and compliance heads of primary exchanges. These buyers 'requirements for their infrastructure partners are consistent with the regulatory standards they themselves must adhere to.

Current regulations further confirm this. The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, links compliant stablecoin issuance to bank-level reserve, disclosure and licensing requirements. Even when non-bank issuers are allowed, the rules push large amounts of trading volume towards bank cooperation and bank custody of reserves. A survey by EY-Parthenon found that 13% of financial institutions and companies currently use stablecoins, while 80% of non-users are actively exploring adoption.

Demand is accumulating. The bottleneck lies in the supply of regulated institutional infrastructure that corporate buyers trust. stablecoin companies that cannot demonstrate deep licensing, bank connectivity, and defensible compliance will lose institutional orders to competitors that can.

Conclusion: Integration rather than stripping

Payment infrastructure companies that can survive at corporate scale are choosing to integrate with banks rather than alienate them. They combine regulated bank connections across multiple counterparties, local channel access to critical corridors, foreign exchange infrastructure to handle multi-currency conversions, and stablecoin settlement as the top programmable layer.

As of the end of 2025, the annualized operating rate of B2B stablecin payments was approximately US$226 billion, a year-on-year increase of 733%. This growth is concentrated among companies that have been the first to address banking-level problems.

stablecoins add value through speed, programmability, round-the-clock settlement and reduced correspondent bank friction. But these advantages can only be released if there is a banking foundation at the bottom. An infrastructure that performed well in a demonstration environment but failed at production scale is a product that was never really completed.

Bernardo Brites is co-founder and CEO of Trace Finance, a company that builds regulated banking and stablecoin settlement infrastructure in Brazil, the United States and emerging markets. The views in the article reflect his unique business perspective in this market.