The share of corporates that have put stablecoins into production now stands at 18%, twice the figure EY-Parthenon recorded a year earlier. That makes it the strongest evidence so far that companies are past asking whether to try stablecoins at all.
The number is from EY-Parthenon’s 2026 Blockchain Payments Survey, which questioned 521 decision-makers at corporations and financial institutions. Tokenized deposits trail only slightly: 15% of corporates say they have adopted them.
Twelve months ago the case was still theoretical. Would regulatory clarity, along with improvements in speed, cost and liquidity, be enough to bring businesses on board? This year’s results point to a market shifting from experiments to implementation. That is not mass adoption, and the survey makes no claim that it is.
Banks more than doubled their commitments
Financial institutions showed the sharper rise. Overall, 69% either offer stablecoin services now or plan to launch them in the next two years, compared with 30% in 2025.
Banks are giving tokenized deposits much the same attention, with 49% already offering them or planning to do so within that same two-year period.
According to Prashant Kher, a partner at EY-Parthenon, the findings show the market moving on from technology trials and toward building these capabilities into the payment workflows and treasury operations firms already run.
The pain point is cross-border payments
Novelty isn’t what’s drawing respondents to stablecoins. Their top use case is cross-border business payments. For stablecoins and tokenized deposits alike, between 50% and 53% of all respondents have used or are looking at each one to pay overseas suppliers or to accept cross-border business-to-business (B2B) payments.
For most respondents, cross-border B2B flows come first. Interest in payouts sits mainly with banks and payments firms.
Anyone who has sent a business wire abroad will recognize the frustrations behind that interest. Among corporates, 56% named slow processing and settlement. Foreign exchange costs or spreads were cited by 52%, delays tied to regulation, sanctions and compliance by 48%, and correspondent banking fees by 36%.
Financial institutions spot the same gap from their side of the table. Quicker settlement and lower costs are among the main reasons they give for looking at both stablecoins and tokenized deposits.
Banks also have ambitions beyond moving money from one place to another. Of the financial institution respondents, 63% chose tokenized asset settlement as the biggest opportunity to add value on top of blockchain payment rails. Put simply, they want to use blockchain-based money to settle trades in other tokenized assets.
Most respondents plan to use both rails
The debate over stablecoins versus tokenized deposits may count for less than it once seemed. Of the respondents interested in blockchain payments, 45% of corporates and 53% of financial institutions said they’d prefer to use both. The main reasons given were flexibility and a belief that the two will exist side by side.
Each one fills a different role. Stablecoins travel across wallets, platforms and public blockchain networks, while tokenized deposits carry commercial bank money into programmable environments. Kher said organizations can choose between them based on use case, counterparty, geography and liquidity needs.
Banks and payment providers, Kher said, need to let clients move between traditional fiat and blockchain payments through integrated processes and a single unified experience.
Your existing bank has the advantage
A standalone crypto app isn’t what corporates are after. For 76% of them, integration with their current enterprise resource planning, treasury management and banking platforms is very important or critical. A further 74% want blockchain payments built fully into the banking and payment interfaces they use today. Just 14% want a separate experience for digital assets.
That hands incumbents a clear lead. If their current bank or payments provider offered blockchain payments, 63% of corporates said they would likely adopt them. Kher noted that this trust still has to be supported by credible economics, secure execution and regulatory readiness.
Programmable payments offer another source of revenue. Among financial institutions, 54% already provide them or plan to within two years, and 75% view them as at least a moderate revenue opportunity. Their leading priorities are liquidity and cash management automation (51%), conditional payments (51%), automated reconciliation (49%) and cross-border automation (47%).
Kher said adoption of blockchain payments may more and more take place inside banking and payment products people already know. As he sees it, the institutions in the best position to lead are the ones that bring stablecoins, tokenized deposits and traditional rails into existing workflows, then layer programmable services on top.
Issuing a stablecoin is the easy part
Payment providers currently make most of their money from transaction fees, currency conversion and other financial services, according to Sam Boboev, founder of Fintech WrapUp. A stablecoin issued by the company itself could bring in extra revenue from the reserves behind the tokens in circulation, depending on the regulatory framework that applies.
He sees a strategic benefit too. A payment company running its own stablecoin could tie merchant settlements, cross-border payouts and customer balances together on a single infrastructure. That could reduce its dependence on outside settlement providers and help it manage liquidity better.
Distribution is where it gets difficult, Boboev said. Putting out a token is fairly straightforward next to persuading businesses to hold and use it, and he expects payment companies that already have merchant networks to come out ahead.
The banks are building their own
In Europe, Qivalis has gathered 37 financial institutions from 15 countries to develop a regulated euro stablecoin. In a separate effort, a global consortium of 21 financial institutions, Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo among them, said in September 2026 that it plans to launch a U.S. dollar stablecoin in the first half of 2027. That group also counts euro issuance as a priority.
Boboev said these projects could allow banks to provide settlement around the clock while keeping control of customer funds. In his view, the largest opportunity lies in institutional payments and tokenized asset settlement, areas where banks already hold customer relationships and payment infrastructure.
To compete with existing issuers, he said, they’ll need sufficient liquidity and wide distribution. Whether these consortiums can convert their banking relationships into meaningful transaction volume is what will decide it.
Euro stablecoins have a narrower target
Dollar stablecoins lead the market, which creates a problem for European businesses that want blockchain payments but hold their transactions and treasury balances in euros. Using dollar stablecoins, Boboev said, brings in foreign exchange costs and currency exposure.
The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation provides euro stablecoin issuers with a regulatory framework, and European banks are putting together infrastructure for settlement in euros. Boboev said European B2B payments and corporate treasury offer the best opportunities.
Still, he doesn’t think euro coins will overtake the dollar on a global scale. Current issuers hold a large advantage thanks to dollar liquidity and established distribution networks. Boboev said a more realistic aim is a strong euro stablecoin market that serves European businesses and financial institutions, and reaching it will depend on liquidity and integration with existing banking systems.