How Stablecoins Will Supercharge Treasury | EBC12

Summary

The panel argued that stablecoins could make corporate treasury more continuous and efficient. Adoption, however, depends less on the technology itself than on solving specific treasury problems, connecting the ecosystem end to end, and adapting banks’ operations to 24/7 settlement.

Business and operating implications

• Move from batch-based treasury to automated, always-on operations. Stablecoins and tokenized money could enable real-time intraday transfers and atomic settlement, reducing the need to pre-fund accounts or hold liquidity buffers across nostro accounts.
• Improve liquidity visibility and control. Programmable rules could automatically move funds when balances cross set thresholds or payments are due, giving treasurers better oversight and reducing manual intervention.
• Address the full transaction journey. Stablecoin transfers may settle around the clock, but fiat deposits and withdrawals still face cutoffs and delays. On- and off-ramps, as well as liquidity in the relevant currency pairs, remain bottlenecks.
• Treat this as an organizational transformation, not just a technology rollout. Banks need to adjust legacy systems, batch processes, compliance, risk management, staffing, and operating hours. Scaling beyond pilots will require 24/7 capabilities and changes to working practices.
• Preserve trusted banking roles. Corporate clients generally care more about a reliable solution than which blockchain or stablecoin it uses. Banks can provide trust, controls, and integration while coordinating with technology providers and other ecosystem participants.
• Recognize the potential impact on banking infrastructure. Continuous settlement could affect deposit and liquidity models, correspondent banking, and the role of traditional payment rails. The panel saw this as a gradual transition, with conventional and new rails operating in parallel for some time.

Practical playbook and recommendations

• Start with a specific pain point and corridor. Identify where funds are delayed, trapped over weekends, costly to move, or tied up in pre-funded accounts. Build a business case around that use case rather than pursuing stablecoins as a goal in themselves.
• Design for end-to-end execution. Connect issuance, wallets, settlement, currency conversion, and fiat on- and off-ramps. Standalone tokenized deposits or stablecoins have limited value if they cannot complete a real transaction.
• Integrate with treasury systems. Incorporate the solution into treasury management systems (TMS) or ERP platforms so it fits treasurers’ existing workflows and controls.
• Establish a settlement anchor. Panelists pointed to wholesale CBDC or another definitive settlement mechanism as a way to connect tokenized money across institutions.
• Build interoperability and liquidity. Multiple disconnected stablecoins risk creating isolated “islands.” Interoperability, FX connectivity, and sufficient liquidity across currencies are prerequisites for usable cross-border services.
• Resolve adoption controls early. Corporate users need clarity on accounting, wallet custody, blockchain operations, reserve and counterparty risk, and compliance responsibilities.
• Develop expertise across the organization. UniCredit described a distributed approach in which business, compliance, payments, and other departments develop digital-asset capabilities, rather than leaving the topic to a standalone team.
• Scale selectively through partnerships. Banks should decide what to build themselves and what to source or develop with partners, avoiding large investments in solutions without validated customer demand.

Customer demand and examples

• Customer orientation was the recurring principle. Corporate treasurers were described as cautiously optimistic: they will use these tools when they solve a practical problem, not simply because they involve blockchain.
• Cross-border payments are an existing use case. A UAE-based OTC business reported that roughly 90% of its flow involved stablecoin on- and off-ramps. Its clients used stablecoins for cross-border payments, including commodity-related payments to Latin America.
• Liquidity management is another use case. Commerzbank’s panelist said treasurers see potential where cross-border transfers are slow or expensive and funds are held in multiple nostro accounts.
• Continuous monitoring may support controls. The OTC panelist cited real-time transaction monitoring as a possible advantage for anti-money-laundering operations.
• Profitability may matter as much as payment speed. Some treasurers were said to show greater interest in tokenized money-market funds than in stablecoins alone.

Metrics and strategic developments cited

• Kivalis consortium: UniCredit’s panelist said it had grown from 9 to 37 banks. The founders’ stated rationale was to develop a euro-denominated European stablecoin and support European monetary sovereignty.
• Planned multi-bank stablecoin company: Santander’s panelist said Santander, Commerzbank, and 19 other financial institutions had committed to a new stablecoin company. He said the initial focus would be a dollar stablecoin, with the euro also a priority, and launch targeted for the first half of the following year. This was presented as a planned initiative, not a completed launch.
• Euro stablecoin market share: Santander’s panelist estimated that euro stablecoins represented 0.2 of total stablecoin market capitalization. The subtitle does not specify the unit, so the figure is retained as stated.
• Survey figures: A panelist cited an EY survey of 350 corporate and financial-institution executives: 100% reportedly knew what a stablecoin was, 13% had used one in some way, and over 50% expressed interest in using one within a timeframe that is garbled in the subtitles. The panelist also said the respondent mix included 8% corporations and 23% financial institutions; the exact meaning of those percentages is unclear in the transcript.
• Other survey cited: The panelist attributed figures to “Trade Wave ICD”: 19% were interested in stablecoins and 25% in tokenized money-market funds. The panelist’s conclusion was that broad interest had not yet translated into equally broad organizational mandates.
• Forecasts: One panelist predicted that by 2029, many large European corporations would hold some portion of their balance sheets in stablecoins. Other panelists expected the next year to remain hybrid, with progress judged by clearer, tangible use cases and adequate liquidity.

Company and regulatory context shared by panelists

• Raiffeisen Bank International: Its representative described a decade of blockchain work and participation in proofs of concept, including tokenization of money. He said RBI had no MiCA licence at the time of the panel and was a Kivalis founding member.
• Santander: Its representative cited experience with treasury-related pilots such as cash pooling and liquidity monitoring, participation in settlement initiatives, and a MiCA-related authorization for its digital bank Openbank to execute and custody crypto assets. He also described the planned multi-bank stablecoin company.
• Commerzbank: Its representative described holding a MiCA CASP licence and a German crypto-custody licence, offering ETH and BTC custody to corporate and institutional clients, and participating in Fnality, Agora, and digital-securities issuance initiatives.
• UniCredit: Its representative said the bank did not have a MiCA licence at the time and framed digital assets as part of a broader customer-led strategy. He said more than 60 people across the bank were developing digital-asset skills.
• UAE-based OTC business: Its representative described serving institutions, high-net-worth individuals, and family offices under VARA regulation, with direct experience in stablecoin flows and treasury operations.

Presenters and sources

• Gernot Prettenthaler — Raiffeisen Bank International; moderator. The subtitles render his surname inconsistently.
• Ramon Pajaro Castellon — Santander.
• Poonam Ahuja — Commerzbank.
• Luca Colombo — UniCredit.
• Gayle Raeside — Midchains.
• External research cited by panelists: EY survey of 350 executives; a survey attributed in the subtitles to “Trade Wave ICD”; and Ebury, identified during the discussion as the source of the survey figures being quoted.