Corporate CFOs are exploring stablecoins for quick payouts and liquidity, but face challenges of compliance, governance, and regulatory uncertainty.
Many companies are turning to stablecoins—cryptocurrencies linked to fiat money—to reduce settlement friction, compress working capital cycles, and lower transaction costs. Some are even thinking of establishing their own. But for CFOs and corporate treasurers, their adoption raises issues related to capital allocation, compliance, liquidity, and governance.
This migration is still common but increasing, according to research from global human resources services firm EY. In a survey involving 250 non-financial companies and 100 financial institutions, 8% of non-financial respondents have already used stablecoins to make or receive payments. Although a small percentage, more than half of respondents who have not used stablecoins in their business (54%) expect to use them in the next six to 12 months.
The study, which was published last September, covers a range of specific industries, from manufacturing, technology, and health / life sciences to sales, transportation and logistics, and technical services, according to the authors.
Among companies that have dipped their toes into stablecoins, professional services firms tend to have a higher adoption rate than the rest of the respondents, notes Prashant Kher, managing director and leader of digital asset strategy and practice at EY and one of the study’s authors: “That’s not surprising in the sense that telecommunications firms, clients have a space account. Pay or get paid in stablecoins.”
According to the report’s authors, the top three use cases are freight forwarding, payment acceptance, and cross-border cash management.
Not surprisingly, the main economic case for stablecoins is centered around cross-border transactions. Stablecoins enable point-to-point payments in real time, potentially reducing foreign exchange spreads, bank fees, and multi-day clearing delays.
For domestic jobs, the competitive advantage is less clear. Existing real-time payment systems such as SEPA Instant Credit Transfer, FedNow, and Pix already provide an efficient channel for resolving issues.
“Whether it’s the US or Europe, they have a payment system that works well, and there is no need for new technology,” said Peter Bofinger, senior professor at the Institute of Economics of the University of Würzburg.
Several CFO-related situations are emerging in live environments. Rebecca Carvatt, partner and co-leader of EY’s digital asset consulting business, cites M&A, compensation, and avoiding weekend port demurrage—costs that can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars—as practical examples. The basic value proposition is time to spend: compressing payment cycles to avoid performance penalties and reducing idle cash buffers.
Stablecoins have yet to exploit one feature of cryptocurrency: the ability to self-organize with self-executing commands, or smart contracts.
“Say I’m a supplier, and track my shipment to my customer’s gateway,” said Roy Ben-Hur, managing director, head of Digital Asset Financial Services at Deloitte & Touche. “Once the shipment has been submitted and the payment confirmed, the payment can be automatically released.”
This will create greater merchant and supplier alignment, he adds, as merchant payments are received faster when they are automatically deposited into the supplier’s account than when the merchant uses traditional payment methods.
Companies Take the Plunge
In recent months, several global companies have announced that they are dipping their toes in the stablecoin waters.
In December, Sony Bank, a subsidiary of Sony Financial Group, announced plans for a US-controlled, dollar-pegged stablecoin ecosystem in partnership with Bastion Platforms, a portfolio company of the Sony Innovation Fund. The new offer is aimed at Sony’s anime and gaming customers.
“Together, they will bring stablecoins to the mass market and set the tone for business adoption of digital assets,” said Kazuhito Hadano, CEO of Sony Ventures Corporation in a prepared statement.
Two weeks later, Intuit entered into a multi-year agreement with Circle Internet Group to establish “a framework for Intuit to develop stablecoin infrastructure for Circle and USDC across the Intuit platform.”
Reports that Amazon.com and Walmart are combining their stablecoin offerings have been surfacing since mid-2025, but they have declined to comment on their activities.
Driving much of the conversation, according to EY’s Carvatt, is the modernization of the back office, as more businesses look to move their business platforms from premises to the cloud. Since enterprise platforms can last seven to 15 years, he notes, the migration has CFOs asking what their business will look like in 2035 and what frameworks, systems, and AI capabilities they will need then.
“One thing I’m seeing from some of our clients, who we know are in the process of doing RFPs for new treasury management systems, enterprise resource planning systems, or payment service providers, is that they’re now including as part of the questions what their capabilities are with stablecoins and blockchain payments,” said EY’s Kher. The easy mix-and-match capabilities offered by payment and treasury providers and major banking providers will be “a huge enabler for these companies and small to mid-sized businesses.”
Build or Buy?
The market capitalization of fiat-backed stablecoins reached about $365 billion in mid-February, according to CoinMarketCap.
Issuers Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC) have reached market capitalizations of approximately $183 billion and $74 billion, respectively, tempting other companies to issue their stablecoins. The business model is relatively simple: issue interest-free stablecoins linked to fiat currencies and invest in highly liquid, safe assets.
However, the business model faces risks in the long term of low, zero, or negative interest rates that destroy the issuer’s capital, Bofinger of the University of Würzburg noted in his 2025 paper, “Stablecoins and the Future of Money: Economic Principles and Policy Implications,” published by the Center for Economics can even make interest profitable as a policy. stablecoins are a store of attractive value.”
The biggest hurdles companies may face when considering issuing their stablecoin is global regulatory uncertainty. In the Global Crypto Policy Review & Outlook 2025/2026, blockchain analytics provider TRM Labs found that among the 30 areas representing 70% of crypto exposure, 70% are developing stablecoin regulatory frameworks.
New technologies, such as stablecoins, bring new risks that must be considered, Carvatt said.
“When we work with our banking and corporate clients, we focus on the benefits but also the new and innovative risks with this technology, such as the consideration of financial crime compliance and the necessary onchain investigation skills that many banks do not have today,” he said. “There are new risks associated with digital assets, but also new data analysis tools are available to investigate potentially suspicious activity on the chain. As more retail and institutional users continue to use stablecoins and other assets on the chain, it is important to combine strong compliance capabilities and a broader view of activity on and off the chain.”
The US enacted the National Generative Innovation of the US (GENIUS) Act last July, and it will go into effect in January. The new regulations aim to create a secure framework for stablecoins and their issuers.
The law limits who can issue “stablecoins for settlement” to subsidiaries of insured depository institutions, federally-qualified non-bank institutions, and federally-qualified institutions and requires issuers to maintain a reserve that backs the stablecoins pegged 1:1 to the US dollar or equivalent liquid assets such as the US Treasury. Additionally, digital asset service providers that the US Treasury Department deems subject to comparable foreign laws may offer, sell, or make foreign-issued stablecoins available in the US.
The most widely distributed stablecoin, Tether’s USDT, is not compatible with GENIUS, because part of its reserves are in precious metals and Bitcoin and it does not operate under the supervision of the necessary organization. To address this issue, Tether launched the GENIUS-compliant USAT for the US market in late January. The circle’s USDC meets the initial requirements of the Act.
As companies consider launching their own coins, “they have to weigh the cost of the whole effort in terms of representing a stablecoin, which means getting licenses, compliance, establishing liquidity, doing all the reporting, following what’s going to be done with the GENIUS Act—and that costs money,” Kher said.
Until regulatory frameworks mature, many companies seem inclined to align with established issuers instead of building their own.
