Stablecoins are shedding their crypto-like repute and quickly becoming a treasury priority. For corporate treasurers, it’s a meaningful option for moving value using what is essentially a new rail, while also managing FX and redesigning cross-border payments. Now, the question is not whether stablecoins matter, but how they matter for your organization.

This is the upshot of the recent discussion “The Rise of Stablecoins: What it Means for Corporate Treasury,” hosted by policy and tech expert Naresh Aggarwal of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT), together with Bottomline Managing Director of Treasury, Kevin Grant, and Colin Swain, Global Head of Product, Corporate Solutions.

The trio unpacked what stablecoins are, where they sit alongside rails like Swift, and what treasurers should consider in terms of B2B use cases for this rising ‘rail.’

 

Stablecoins 101: From Crypto Catchword to Real Rail

Swain began by positioning stablecoins as one component of a broader digital asset ecosystem that also includes cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The crucial distinction, he said, is the peg. Unlike a free-floating cryptocurrency, a stablecoin is designed to track a fiat currency, and regulators are increasingly insisting that pegs be high-quality liquid assets such as cash and treasuries.

Most corporate treasurers continue watching Bitcoin, but from a safe distance. Extreme volatility, reputational risk, and compliance complexity make it a poor fit for corporate payments. Stablecoins, Swain argued, are built for a different purpose. The core difference between what treasurers have heard about cryptocurrencies and what they need to know about stablecoins is that “stablecoins are pegged to a fiat currency” and that a token such as USDC “is the equivalent of one US dollar.”

Regulation is tightening around that promise. In the United States, legislation such as the “Genius Act” and a forthcoming “Stable Act” are pushing issuers to hold reserves in cash or government securities. Swain noted that this is changing the risk profile for institutional users: it is no longer about blind faith in a token but about selecting issuers that can prove reserves and regulatory alignment.

Aggarwal drew out another important shift for treasurers. In traditional finance, networks such as Swift carry messages, not value. A payment order travels through a chain of correspondent banks, and only later does the underlying cash actually move. On blockchain rails, the instruction and the settlement happen together. Swain explained that on these networks, the asset and the rail are effectively the same, so payment instructions and final settlement are bundled into a single on-chain transaction that strips out layers of clearing and reconciliation.

To make the point tangible, he compared stablecoin-based transfers to email: you send value directly from your address to the recipient’s, across the network, rather than passing through multiple intermediaries that each add delay, cost, and complexity.

 

Where Stablecoins Will Hit Treasury First

For corporate treasury, panelists agreed that the first real impact of stablecoins will be felt in cross-border payments and FX management.

Today, complex cross-border flows often involve several correspondent banks, unclear timelines, and opaque fee structures. Every bank in the chain runs its own compliance checks, takes a fee, and introduces delay. The friction gets worse in more exotic corridors or markets where the local banking infrastructure is weak or fragmented.

Swain contrasted that with a blockchain-based model where a stablecoin moves directly between digital wallets in near real time. He argued that this gives treasurers “a way of holding funds in those currencies that doesn’t rely on you going to your bank and setting up a U.S. dollar account or euro account,” adding that corporate treasury can “set up those wallet accounts incredibly quickly” to fund and move money between them instantly.

That capability creates new options for managing FX exposure. Instead of maintaining multiple foreign currency bank accounts, treasurers could hold working balances in USD or EUR stablecoins and rebalance positions dynamically within defined policies. Swain pointed to emerging services, often described as “oracles” that track FX markets and automatically trigger movements between wallets when preset thresholds are hit.

Smart contracts extend this automation into trade and working capital flows. Aggarwal pushed the panel to translate the technology into familiar treasury scenarios. Swain described smart contracts as pieces of code on the blockchain that execute when specified conditions are met.

A corporate could, for example, set rules that move a stablecoin from buyer to seller when an invoice is raised, an approval is logged, or goods are confirmed as received. That kind of conditional, rule-based settlement could remove many of the manual checks, file exchanges, and reconciliations that still dominate payables and receivables today.

Kevin Grant added that some banks and platforms are already piloting more advanced use cases, such as moving temporarily out of a stablecoin into a higher-yield digital instrument and then back again within hours. While he positioned this as an early-stage concept rather than something for the average corporate, it underlined how quickly incumbent institutions are adapting to new rails.

 

Risk, Regulation, and Choosing the Right Rail

An obvious question for treasurers is whether or not stablecoin is just another elaborate way for bad actors to move money. The panel pushed back on that perception.

Swain pointed out that much of today’s stablecoin volume is in the trading world, where investors use stablecoins as a parking place between more volatile crypto positions. Those flows do not look like corporate payments. He also highlighted that public blockchains can actually increase transparency versus traditional cross-border models, because value can, in theory, be followed from one wallet to another.

The real weakness lies in identity at the endpoints, and the way compliance is implemented on and off the chain.

That’s where regulation and issuer choice matter. Swain emphasized that “not every stablecoin is equal,” and that it depends what a corporate wants from the asset. Issuers such as Circle with its USDC have made a deliberate choice to align themselves closely with US regulations and maintain clear, audited backing. Others, such as Tether, have consciously chosen not to comply with all of those regimes. From a treasury perspective, that turns coin and issuer selection into a major policy choice, not a minor technical detail.

He also pointed to the rise of enterprise-focused networks that build AML and compliance rules into the rail itself, instead of bolting on safeguards afterwards. Over time, stablecoin payments on those rails could be as tightly controlled and monitored as payments over Swift, but with added benefits of speed, programmability, and data richness.

Swain boiled the practical risk lens down to three questions: are you choosing a stablecoin that is properly regulated and backed by high quality liquid assets; are you choosing secure, well governed applications and partners to access those coins; and are you applying the same level of governance, segregation of duties and approval to this channel that you already apply to any other payment or investment instrument.

He reminded the audience that “at the end of the day, this is an asset. It’s a set of payments. Treat it in the same way as you do right now.”

Grant agreed and suggested that language is part of the barrier. Treasurers think in terms of currencies and bank accounts, not digital assets and smart contracts. He argued that “seeing stablecoin as another currency perhaps isn’t a bad way to frame things,” and that treasury is still there to mitigate risk and set policy, albeit with a wider menu of instruments. In his view, it’s only a matter of time before treasury policies start to reference a “currency of choice” called a stablecoin alongside dollars, euros, and sterling.

 

How Treasurers Can Prepare Today

Toward the end of the session, Aggarwal brought the discussion back to readiness and practical steps. Most treasury teams are still at an early stage in the innovation curve, if they have engaged at all. At the same time, activity in the market is accelerating.

Swain noted that some European corporates are already planning to run real-world stablecoin transactions in 2026. In parallel, UK regulators such as the FCA and the Bank of England are progressing consultations on stablecoin issuance and infrastructure, and the first sterling stablecoin providers are moving through the authorization process.

Aggarwal said that treasurers can’t wait for a finished regulatory framework before they start learning. The mix of regulatory momentum, fintech innovation, and C-suite interest guarantees that questions are coming. His view is that treasurers do not have to use stablecoins today, but “you need to be ready,” and “you need to be able to answer the CFO and C-suite when they ask you a question.”

Grant framed the broader environment as one of adaptation rather than wholesale disruption. Central banks and commercial banks are not disappearing. Instead, they are redefining their roles in a landscape where new rails, instruments, and business models are emerging on top of the existing financial system.

For treasury teams, several practical actions stand out:

  • Build a working understanding of stablecoins, CBDCs, and blockchain-based payment rails, focusing on how they differ from existing processes.
  • Map today’s cash, FX, and liquidity risks to potential future models that include tokenized assets and programmable payments.
  • Engage with trusted partners, be they banks, technology providers, or bodies such as the ACT, to explore pilots and feed into policy discussions.

Swain encouraged treasurers to look beyond the noise of the wider crypto market and focus on underlying infrastructure advantages. He noted that if the industry were to redesign payments and asset infrastructure from scratch, it would end up as something closer to blockchain and stablecoins than digitized versions of 40-year-old processes.

In his words, “…at some point this will be a success, and take over,” adding that treasurers will be pleased with the “exciting use cases and examples of how stablecoins” can apply.

For now, the immediate task for treasury is to treat stablecoins as a serious, regulated, and valuable new payment option, just on the horizon. Learn the terminology, understand the risk drivers, refresh policies, and be ready for the first credible use case that lands on your desk. When the C-suite asks what stablecoins mean for working capital, cross-border payments, and FX exposure, the strongest answer will be informed, grounded in policy, and tied directly to the value this new ‘rail’ brings to business payments.