The hype phase for stablecoins is over, according to one of the executives building them into a major payments network. “Most people can argue it’s not going anywhere anytime soon,” Rowland B
The hype phase for stablecoins is over, according to one of the executives building them into a major payments network.
“Most people can argue it’s not going anywhere anytime soon,” Rowland Berry, vice president of stablecoin at Payoneer (PAYO), told TheStreet Roundtable at Money20/20 in Las Vegas.
Payoneer released its new research report, Stablecoin Steps Up, at the conference on Oct. 19.
Payoneer is a cross-border payments company built around emerging-market corridors. It handled $87.5 billion in volume in 2025 and has nearly 2 million active customers, most of them small and medium businesses.
In February, it partnered with Stripe-owned Bridge to embed stablecoin workflows in its platform. It also applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter, and in October it registered as a payment service provider in Canada.
Related: Solana Foundation exec: Emerging markets embrace stablecoins first
For the report, Payoneer and Ascend2 surveyed 265 senior payments, treasury, and finance leaders at US companies with at least $100 million in annual revenue. All of them were already using, piloting, or evaluating stablecoins.
The results suggest the pilots are working. 69% of respondents use stablecoins operationally, including 41% at what Payoneer calls meaningful scale, and 82% expect stablecoins to become part of their financial infrastructure within three years.
The gains show up in daily operations. Half of the companies using or piloting stablecoins report faster settlement, 41% cite better access to markets and currencies, and 40% point to a better experience for the people getting paid.
The next step is customer-facing. A third of respondents already offer stablecoin capabilities directly to customers, and another 50% plan to within three years. Treasury and multi-currency balances are a priority for 92%, now or within three years, and 86% say the same about embedded customer wallets.
Value perception widens with scale. 68% of meaningful-scale users call stablecoin very valuable, against 20% of firms still piloting. Among businesses operating in 11 or more countries, 82% report proven, measurable benefits in at least three areas, compared with 60% of those in ten or fewer.
Among companies running it at meaningful scale, 90% say it has been worth the effort.
Asked what is holding broader adoption back, Berry pointed to what he calls the “unhappy flows.”
“When something goes wrong, who is actually accountable for the transaction?” he said. “How do you manage things like returns, chargebacks, how do you think about reconciliation on chain?”
The report lists integration, reconciliation, regulatory readiness, and provider accountability as the main barriers, and 32% of firms flag reliability and provider accountability as a concern. Underpinning all of them, Berry said, is regulatory clarity. The GENIUS Act’s rules for stablecoin issuers are still being put into practice.
Berry sees cross-border stablecoin use splitting into two tracks. In business payments across emerging markets, it is primarily Tether’s USDT, because that is what customers and contractors ask to be paid in.
Institutional flows look different.
For those, Berry expects “a very different type of asset that has a very different kind of regulatory structure because of the counterparty risk.”
Tether itself launched a separate U.S.-regulated stablecoin, USAT, while USDT works toward compliance.
Large businesses beyond payments companies are exploring the same rails. Uber’s CEO has said stablecoins could cut the company’s cross-border costs as well.
