As stablecoins mature, financial institutions are exploring ways to integrate them into everyday operations, moving beyond pilot programs toward real-world applications, panelists said at the Finance Magnates London Summit 2025.

The session, “Stablecoins for a Destabilized World: Use Cases in Financial Services,” brought together Jas Shah, independent product strategist; Luke Dorney, head of custody at LMAX Group; Andrew Rosoman, international head of business development at Ripple Prime; and Harpal Sandhu, CEO of Integral. Melissa Stringer, fractional CPO and product strategy consultant, moderated the discussion.

Top Layer Infrastructure Remains Key Friction

Dorney outlined the layered infrastructure of stablecoins, emphasizing that while the coins themselves and the underlying blockchains are relatively well understood, the top layer of connectors — exchanges, wallets, custodians — remains the biggest friction point for regulated firms.

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“A lot of those firms on the top layer all operate a little bit differently,” Dorney said. “Sometimes that instant settlement doesn’t occur because one custodian may operate differently to another.”

Stablecoins Enable Near-Zero Cost Transactions

Sandhu framed stablecoins as a fundamental disruption akin to tokenization in telecom or AI breakthroughs, enabling new business models through near-zero-cost and instant money transmission. He highlighted Integral’s on-chain credit facility, which removes counterparty risk by tokenizing US dollars and settling variation margins in real time.

“When you introduce zero into the transmission of money… entrepreneurs are going to figure out totally new value propositions to customers,” Sandhu said.

Stablecoins Unlock Liquidity and Efficiency

Rosoman drew parallels with the FX market, noting that stablecoins can unlock trapped capital and improve liquidity efficiency. Ripple Prime now supports billions of dollars in daily transactions while accepting stablecoins as good collateral for margin financing.

“Blockchain inherently unlocks the technology to reduce friction and move it forward,” Rosoman said.

Third-Party Dependencies Are Main Obstacles

Shah brought a pragmatic perspective on operational challenges, drawing on his experience standardizing CDS contracts post-2008. He argued that the biggest obstacles are not legacy technology but external systems beyond an institution’s direct control.

“The big friction points came when we were looking at accounting book of record, investment book of record, the systems at the heart of those organizations. It’ll be what are the products that are actually not directly in your control that you need to change but actually rely on a third party — third-party timelines, third-party dependencies, resourcing costs,” Shah said.

Shah also emphasized the importance of top-down mandates for adoption. “If you think about AI deployment in corporate environments, it’s very similar — you need buy-in at the top to really get this to work.”

LATEST: 💰 US lawmakers have introduced a draft bill that would exempt stablecoin transactions under $200 from capital gains taxes and allow crypto miners and stakers to defer taxes on rewards for up to five years. pic.twitter.com/Trxj8in0xw

— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) December 22, 2025

Stablecoins Solve Payroll and FX Challenges

Shah highlighted real-world B2B opportunities over consumer-facing remittances. Payroll and cross-border marketplace payments present larger markets with operational challenges.

“The settlement times are a bit longer, especially for payroll, contractors like myself can be stung with FX volatility, and stablecoins can help solve those problems,” he said.

Adoption Hinges on Regulation and Infrastructure

Panelists agreed that the next phase of adoption depends on regulatory clarity and practical infrastructure, including scalable blockchain networks and multi-chain interoperability.

“Regulatory clarity allows firms to look at more intricate models supporting the infrastructure around stablecoins and actually make implementation decisions,” Dorney said.

🇪🇺 UPDATE: Ethereum leads the euro stablecoin market, with 50% of all tokenized euros issued on Ethereum, per Barchart. pic.twitter.com/DemGbDBirC

— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) December 22, 2025

Stablecoins Becoming Core Financial Plumbing

As adoption grows, panelists predicted that stablecoins would become core plumbing in financial services, supporting trading, liquidity management, and cross-border payments. Rosoman highlighted the scale:

“Over the course of the year, $50 trillion of value has been transacted through stablecoins — more than Visa and Mastercard combined.”

Stablecoins Are Tool, Not Novelty

For financial institutions, the message was clear: stablecoins are no longer a novelty but a tool to increase efficiency, reduce risk, and enable new business models, provided firms address regulatory, operational, and technological frictions effectively.