Stablecoin Payments Guide for Fintechs & Financial Institutions

Stablecoins are already changing the way fintechs and institutions handle payments. This guide is a strategic blueprint for fintechs and institutions seeking to understand and leverage the power of digital currency to achieve unprecedented efficiency and unlock new market opportunities.

A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable market value by pegging it to an external reference, such as a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar or a commodity like gold. Stablecoins typically maintain their peg through mechanisms like holding equivalent reserves of the pegged asset (e.g., 1:1 U.S. dollar backing) or through algorithmic protocols that adjust supply based on demand.

In 2024, total stablecoin transfer volumes reached $27.6 trillion, surpassing the combined volumes of Visa and Mastercard. Today, the market cap for stablecoins has passed $232 billion, with rapid growth being driven by increased adoption in payments, trading, and cross-border transfers. Specific ecosystems are experiencing explosive growth; Solana's stablecoin supply, for instance, surged by 156% in early 2025, surpassing $13 billion, with Circle's USDC commanding a significant 77% market share on the platform.

This growth of these utility-driven digital currencies suggests a maturation of the digital asset space where stability and transactional efficiency are increasingly valued.

This article is a strategic playbook for understanding how stablecoins are reshaping payments. Whether you're a fintech aiming to drive faster transactions or a bank exploring new revenue streams, this guide breaks down where stablecoins add value, how to integrate them, and the critical decisions you need to make in order to truly harness the power of digital dollars.

Today’s Global Payments Market

The global payments market underpins commerce worldwide and thus represents a massive segment of the financial industry; it is forecasted to grow from $716.31 billion in 2024 to $783.02 billion in 2025. 

This vast market operates through a complex ecosystem of payment operators and types. Key operators include the entities managing the underlying "payment rails"—the infrastructure enabling fund movement. Prominent examples in the US include the ACH (Automated Clearing House), newer real-time systems like FedNow (Federal Reserve) and RTP (The Clearing House), and the ubiquitous card networks (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover). 

Globally, systems like SWIFT facilitate interbank messaging for cross-border transfers, while regional networks like SEPA in Europe or UPI in India handle domestic or regional flows. Payment processors act as intermediaries, facilitating transaction authorization and settlement between merchants, consumers, and financial institutions. The primary payment types flowing through these rails include traditional methods like credit transfers, direct debits, checks, and cash deposits.

Opportunities for Stablecoins in Today’s Payments Industry

The global payments industry processes trillions of dollars annually, but remains filled with inefficiencies. High fees, slow transactions, and complex systems create opportunities for innovation—especially for solutions like stablecoins. Stablecoins directly address the core weaknesses inherent in traditional systems:

Lower Costs 

Traditional payment methods, particularly those crossing borders, remain prohibitively expensive. Retail cross-border payments can consume up to 6% of the transaction value, with remittances being notoriously costly – averaging around 6.6% globally for sending a modest sum like $200.

B2B international payments also incur substantial fees through intermediary banks and FX conversions, potentially costing $14 to $150 per $1,000 transferred. 

Transferring stablecoins on efficient blockchains like Solana can cost as little as $0.00025 per transaction.

Accelerate settlement speeds

Legacy payment systems often involve settlement delays ranging from hours to several business days, especially for international transactions, which can take 2-5 days or longer.

This latency ties up working capital, creating opportunity costs as funds are unavailable for use or investment during the settlement period. It also introduces counterparty risk and can strain business relationships. 

Settlement finality on Solana can be achieved in approximately 400 milliseconds. This near-instant settlement unlocks trapped capital almost immediately, making available significant liquidity and drastically reducing the opportunity costs associated with waiting for funds.

Increase accessibility

A significant portion of the global population remains excluded from the formal financial system. Barriers include a lack of access to physical banking infrastructure (especially in rural areas), the high cost of basic banking services, complex documentation and identification requirements, and low financial literacy.

Accessing stablecoins just requires an internet connection and a compatible digital wallet on a smartphone or computer.

Improve interoperability

The backend of the traditional payments system is characterized by complexity and fragmentation. It relies on a patchwork of siloed legacy systems, proprietary messaging formats (though standards like ISO 20022 aim to improve this), and numerous intermediaries.

This lack of seamless interoperability between different domestic and international payment networks contributes directly to the system's high costs, slow speeds, and lack of transparency. 

Permissionless blockchains provide an open and highly composable environment. This means different applications and services can interact and build upon one another seamlessly without needing permission from a central gatekeeper.

Stablecoins vs. Traditional Payments

Let's compare a cross-border remittance of $200 using traditional payment rails and stablecoins on a public blockchain like Solana.

Cost

• Traditional Rails: 6-10% or fixed fees + FX spread 
• Stablecoin Rails: <$0.01 transaction fee + ramp fees 

For Fintechs, stablecoins enable competitive, low-cost global services. For FIs, blockchain payment rails reduce operational costs for international settlements, potentially enabling cheaper client services.

Settlement

• Traditional Rails: Hours to Days
• Stablecoin Rails: ~400ms finality

Solana unlocks real-time applications for Fintechs (e.g. instant payouts, dynamic pricing) and improves user experiences. Financial institutions benefit fromimproved liquidity management, less counterparty risk, and a more streamlined reconciliation process.

Accessibility

• Traditional Rails: Bank account, physical infrastructure, documentation 
• Stablecoin Rails: Internet connection, digital wallet 

Stablecoins and blockchain payment rails expand the total addressable marketfor all Fintechs and FIs.

Interoperability

• Traditional Rails: Siloed systems, complex integration, reliance on intermediaries
• Stablecoin Rails: Open, permissionless (on Solana), highly composable via smart contracts

By building on open, permissionless blockchains like Solana, Fintechs can use stablecoins to accelerate product development and foster ecosystem innovation. For FIs, it enables integrations with new digital asset services, and simplifies certain backend processes.

Issuers and Types of Stablecoins

Behind each stablecoin is an issuer, an entity responsible for its creation (minting), destruction (burning), reserve management, ensuring redeemability, and adhering to relevant regulations.

The credibility and practices of the issuer are paramount to the trustworthiness of the stablecoin. Key issuers include Circle, Paxos, Tether, Brale, and M0 Foundation. 

The stablecoin landscape is diverse, with different types categorized primarily by the mechanism used to maintain their price stability, or "peg." Understanding these distinctions is crucial, as the underlying structure significantly impacts a stablecoin's risk profile, transparency, regulatory standing, and suitability for various use cases. 

Fiat-collateralized stablecoins

These stablecoins are the most prevalent type. They maintain their peg by holding reserves of a specific fiat currency (or highly liquid, safe equivalents like short-term government treasuries) equal to or exceeding the value of the stablecoins in circulation.

Examples include USD Coin (USDC), PayPal USD (PYUSD), and Tether (USDT). Their dominance suggests a market preference, particularly among institutional users and those seeking lower risk, for models that closely mirror traditional financial structures and offer transparency through audited reserves.

Commodity-collateralized stablecoins

These stablecoins are backed by reserves of physical commodities, most commonly precious metals like gold. The value of the stablecoin is pegged to the market price of the underlying commodity.

Examples include Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUt).  

Crypto-collateralized stablecoins

These maintain their peg by holding reserves of other cryptocurrencies. Because the collateral itself can be volatile, these systems typically require over-collateralization – meaning the value of the crypto held in reserve significantly exceeds the value of the stablecoins issued (e.g., 150% or more). Smart contracts often manage the collateralization levels and liquidation processes automatically.

Dai (DAI) by MakerDAO is a prominent example.  

Algorithmic stablecoins

This category relies on algorithms (software protocols) to manage the stablecoin's supply dynamically in response to market demand, aiming to keep the price stable around its peg.

These have proven more complex and potentially less stable, with notable failures like TerraUSD impacting market confidence in this model.

Best Blockchains for Stablecoins 

Selecting the appropriate blockchain platform is a critical strategic decision when developing or utilizing stablecoins.

The choice between permissionless networks (i.e., open to all participants) and permissioned networks (restricted access) fundamentally shapes the characteristics of the stablecoin solution: the degree of decentralization, accessibility, governance structure, inherent compliance capabilities, transaction costs, speed, etc. 

Permissionless Blockchains

Permissionless blockchains, such as Solana Mainnet or Ethereum Mainnet, offer open access: anyone can build applications, issue tokens (subject to platform rules), and participate in the network. Fintechs often opt for these because they can build and iterate quickly, and target broad markets without needing approval from a central authority. 

Solana, in particular, achieves very high transaction throughput (surpassing 4,000 transactions per second in production today, with a theoretical capacity of 65,000), settlement in around 400 milliseconds, and extremely low transaction fees.

These attributes have made Solana an increasingly popular choice for deploying stablecoins and building high-frequency payment applications, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, and consumer-facing services. 

Ethereum Mainnet has historically faced significant scalability challenges. Its popularity often leads to network congestion, resulting in high transaction fees ("gas fees") and slower confirmation times.

Rollups, Ethereum Layer 2 Solutions, are designed to process transactions on a separate layer and periodically submit compressed transaction data and state proofs back to the Ethereum Mainnet. 

Permissioned Blockchains

Permissioned blockchains operate with restricted access, requiring authorization for participation, transaction validation, and often governance. This controlled environment provides several advantages, particularly for regulated entities like financial institutions seeking to use blockchain, but are concerned with security, identity, and regulation. 

Key benefits include enhanced security through known validators, the ability to implement robust, network-level compliance features (like KYC/AML checks), greater control over data privacy, and tailored governance structures. 

Spherenet is a permissioned blockchain network developed collaboratively by Sphere and Anza, built upon a modified version of the high-performance Solana Virtual Machine (SVM).

Spherenet is designed specifically as a shared, compliant ledger for regulated financial entities worldwide to conduct cross-border payments and settlements as a highly efficient and auditable alternative to the traditional correspondent banking system.

Another example is Kinexys, JPMorgan’s proprietary permissioned blockchain platform that facilitates 24/7, near real-time interbank transfers and foreign exchange (FX) settlements for its institutional and corporate clients.

Stablecoin Use Cases and Applications 

Fundamentally, the promise of stablecoins lies in their ability to address the core inefficiencies of traditional financial rails. From foundational infrastructure enabling the entire ecosystem to specific applications transforming how enterprises use crypto, stablecoins are at the forefront of financial innovation.

Payment Networks

Purpose-built to facilitate stablecoin transactions, often focused on bridging the gap between digital assets and traditional finance or serving specific institutional needs

Examples:

• Spherenet
• Circle Payments Network

On and Off-Ramps

Services that enable users to convert their fiat currency (e.g., US Dollars, Euros) into cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins, and vice versa.

This typically involves using familiar payment methods like bank transfers, debit cards, or credit cards to connect to wallets to purchase or sell digital assets.

Examples:

• ZarPay
• Sphere
• Moonpay
• Bridge 

Payouts

Global payroll, vendor payments, and freelance disbursements delivered globally and immediately, simplifying operations and providing recipients faster access to earnings in a potentially more stable currency.

Examples:

• Modern Treasury
• MuralPay
• Deel

Cross-Border Remittances

Cross-border payments that fuel B2B payment platforms targeting importers/exporters, global treasury solutions, and financial institutions offering cross-border operations to attract and retain clients.

Examples:

• Stripe
• MoneyGram
• JP Morgan

Dedicated Apps

Bring stablecoin payment capabilities directly to end-users, leveraging permissionless blockchains for broader reach and network effects.

Examples:

• Paypal
• Venmo
• Coinbase

Cards

Issued in partnership with major networks like Visa or Mastercard, allow users to spend their stablecoin holdings at millions of merchant locations worldwide that accept standard card payments.

Examples:

• Fuse (via Visa and Bridge)
• MetaMask

The Future of Stablecoins

The simultaneous development of closed, private networks (Spherenet, CPN) and open, user-focused applications starts to outline a dual path for stablecoin adoption: One path focuses on incremental reform and integration within the existing regulated financial system (and within new and evolving legal frameworks), while the other pursues more disruptive innovation on permissionless rails.

Both are necessary for broad adoption, and it is happening: transaction volumes have already reached staggering levels, with Visa reporting $27 trillion in stablecoin volume for 2024. 

However, the future of stablecoin payments may be less about dedicated "stablecoin apps" and more about the invisible integration of stablecoin technology into the familiar applications users already trust. 

The result? 

A simply cheaper, faster, global payment experience that just…works. 

If you're looking for a SOC 2-compliant Solana node provider to help build a Solana Permissioned Environment or consult your team about stablecoin integrations, let's talk.