Most banks are planning stablecoin schemes, survey finds

RedCompass Labs has found that 72% of banks are planning, building, piloting or operating their own stablecoin arrangements, though only 10% have them live in production.

The findings are based on a survey of 300 senior payments professionals across Europe, the UK and the US.

The results point to a gap between strategic intent and operational readiness as banks assess how digital money may alter payment flows, infrastructure investment and competition in transaction banking. Many institutions appear to be testing their options, but far fewer have moved into live deployment.

More than half of respondents, 57%, said their organisation would need to build new infrastructure or make material upgrades to existing systems to support stablecoins or tokenised deposits. That suggests the shift would require changes well beyond front-end product design, extending into the systems used to process payments, manage controls and handle settlement.

Infrastructure gap

Banks also expect technology tools to play a part. Four in five respondents, or 80%, said they plan to use AI agents to analyse, develop and test the system changes needed to support digital money.

The survey suggests lenders see stablecoins first as a payments and settlement issue rather than only a product question. Nearly a third, 31%, said cross-border settlement was the most likely entry point for their institution.

That focus reflects the areas where digital-asset rails are often discussed as an alternative to parts of the conventional correspondent banking model. The study found that 72% of banks expect an average of 8% of existing payment flows to move onto digital-asset rails.

Set against estimated global cross-border payment flows of USD 208 trillion, even a single-digit shift would amount to a large volume of activity. For banks that depend on fee income, client balances and treasury services linked to those flows, the question is not only whether stablecoins are adopted, but where value in the payments chain shifts.

Commercial concerns

Respondents said they were weighing the effect on deposits as well as payment volumes. Four in ten banks expect stablecoins to lead to deposit outflows over the next three to five years, although only 5% expect those outflows to have a significant impact on their business.

Banks also pointed to the operational cost of transition. The biggest concern about failing to support stablecoins or tokenised deposits within the next three years was the cost of maintaining parallel legacy and digital systems, cited by 26% of respondents.

Other concerns included deposit outflows to digital-money alternatives at 21%, dependence on third-party infrastructure at 18%, and the loss of corporate payments clients, payment volumes and revenue at 17% each. Together, those responses suggest many institutions are trying to balance the risk of moving too slowly against the expense and complexity of changing core systems too quickly.

Regulation remains the main barrier. Some 35% of respondents identified regulatory uncertainty as the biggest obstacle to adoption or scale, ahead of integration complexity at 32% and reserve and liquidity concerns at 31%.

Those findings underline that the development of stablecoin services is shaped by more than technology choices. Banks must also consider prudential treatment, reserve structures, liquidity management and how new products fit with existing compliance and operational controls.

UK ahead

The UK stood out in the survey as the most advanced market among those covered. Some 20% of UK respondents said their own stablecoin arrangements were live in production, while 22% said they were live with third-party stablecoins, about twice the global averages.

That may indicate a greater willingness among UK-based institutions to move from planning into execution, either by building their own offerings or by working with external providers. Even so, the broader figures suggest live deployment remains limited across the industry.

The research also found that banks are not focused only on issuance. Some 60% said they were building or already offering treasury, foreign exchange and liquidity services for digital assets. More than half were also developing services including distribution, embedded payments, on- and off-ramps, and custody or reserve management.

That points to a wider contest over who controls the supporting services around digital money. Banks may not all choose to issue stablecoins themselves, but many appear to see a role in providing the operational and balance-sheet services linked to adoption.

Santhosh Kumar, Partner and Head of Payments at RedCompass Labs, commented on the findings.

"Banks clearly believe stablecoins are moving into the mainstream, but most are still some distance from being ready to support them at scale. Moving to live payments means reworking the infrastructure, controls and operations behind the transaction.

"The stakes are commercial too, with banks expecting payment flows to shift onto digital-asset rails, and many already considering the impact on deposits. AI agents can accelerate the necessary system changes, but banks still need to decide where they want to compete and what they are willing to outsource.

"The banks that turn stablecoin strategy into working infrastructure fastest will be best placed to protect payment flows, deposits and customer relationships," said Kumar.