Stablecoin payments are increasingly becoming a fixture in business transactions as they move trillions of dollars each year. Stablecoins, digital dollars that live on a blockchain and settle in minutes, offer serious advantages in cross-border transactions, where they outperform traditional payment methods on speed, cost, and access to new markets. Below, we’ll discuss how stablecoins compare with traditional payments, the risks they involve, and how they can benefit your business.

What’s in this article?

• What are stablecoin payments?
  
• What are the traditional payment methods in business?
  
• How do stablecoin payments work for businesses compared to traditional payments?
  
• How do stablecoins compare to traditional payments on speed and settlement?
  
• What are the cost differences between stablecoin and traditional payments?
  
• What risks might businesses encounter with stablecoin payments compared to traditional payments?
  
• How do stablecoins impact cross-border business payments compared to traditional methods?
  
• What are the compliance and regulatory considerations for stablecoins compared to traditional payments?
  
• How do stablecoin payments affect treasury and cash management compared to traditional methods?
  
• How do customers experience stablecoin payments compared to traditional methods?
  
• How Stripe Payments can help
  

What are stablecoin payments?

Stablecoins are digital tokens pegged to a real-world asset, often a fiat currency such as the US dollar (USD) or euro, and are designed to hold steady value. One USDC, for example, is designed to always equal roughly one dollar because it’s backed by USD reserves. Businesses use stablecoins because they combine crypto’s speed and reach with fiat’s predictability.

A typical payment works like this: a customer sends stablecoins from their digital wallet to the business’s wallet and settlement occurs within minutes. There are no bank cutoff times and no pending statuses. Companies can keep the tokens for future payments or instantly convert them into local currency through a provider like Stripe.

What are the traditional payment methods in business?

Businesses still regularly move money through familiar networks: cards, bank transfers, and—to a lesser extent—cash or checks. Traditional networks are well known and universal but are generally slower, subject to higher fees, and restricted by banking hours. Here’s a closer look at each method:

• Credit and debit payments: These transactions depend on card networks like Visa and Mastercard, with issuing banks, acquiring banks, and processors in the mix. The purchase feels instant to the customer, but businesses usually wait 1–3 days for settlement and pay a percentage of the transaction amount plus a flat fee.

• Bank transfers: Making transfers through your bank is inexpensive but can take days. Wire transfers are faster but involve higher fees and sometimes hidden foreign exchange markups. Payments that are routed through multiple correspondent banks can take up to a week.

• Cash and checks: While cash and checks are still used in some markets, they’re costly to handle and painfully slow to clear.

How do stablecoin payments work for businesses compared to traditional payments?

Fundamentally, both stablecoin and traditional payments do the same thing: they move value from the customer to the business. But stablecoins are an internet-native payment method with instant finality, while traditional methods rely on legacy institutions, intermediaries, and multiday settlement. Here’s how each payment type works.

Stablecoin payments

A business provides a digital wallet address. The customer sends the agreed amount. Within minutes, the tokens settle on a blockchain and land in the business’s wallet. The transfer is visible on a public network and it can’t be reversed once it’s confirmed. There are no bank intermediaries or cutoff times for processing. The business can hold stablecoins to pay suppliers or hedge against local volatility, or it can instantly convert them to local currency through an exchange or processor.

Traditional payments

Card flows run through layers, from the payment processor to the acquiring bank to the card network to the issuing bank. The business receives authorization instantly, but funds settle in batches a few days later. Direct deposits are slower still: domestic wire transfers can be same-day, but international ones often take days and pass through multiple correspondent banks. Some of these systems allow reversals (e.g., chargebacks on cards).

How do stablecoins compare to traditional payments on speed and settlement?

Stablecoins settle at internet speed. A transfer usually clears within seconds or minutes at any time of day, any day of the year. There are no cutoff times and no bank holidays. The payment is final once it’s confirmed on the chain and it’s irreversible like cash payment.

Traditional systems are comparatively sluggish. Cards and direct deposits take 1–3 business days. International wire transfers can take five days or more, especially if they route through multiple correspondent banks. Even a same-day domestic wire transfer is subject to bank cutoff times.

This has a direct impact on cash flow. With the settlement speed of stablecoins, exporters don’t have to wait a week to see funds, marketplaces can pay creators in minutes, and CFOs no longer need to hold excess balances in foreign accounts in case of delays.

Settlement finality matters, too. Card payments come with the risk that they might be reversed later. Bank transfers can be recalled under certain circumstances. The certainty of a stablecoin payment can reshape how finance teams manage liquidity.

What are the cost differences between stablecoin and traditional payments?

Traditional payment methods carry layers of fees. With card payments, businesses pay a percentage of every sale, plus a small fixed fee. Direct deposit is cheap but slow, while wire transfers are faster but come with high fees, especially for international transactions. Each correspondent bank along the way can add another charge, and foreign exchange (FX) spreads often cost a small cut as well.

Stablecoins typically cost much less to process. Blockchain fees are typically pennies to a few dollars. There are no bank or card network fees. The caveat is conversion: on-ramps and off-ramps charge a small percentage to convert stablecoins into fiat currency and vice versa. But these costs are still usually lower than processing with traditional payment methods. If you’re sending or receiving large international payments, stablecoins can make a real difference in lowering costs.

Stablecoins really shine when they avoid conversion altogether. A US firm that pays an Argentine contractor in USDC doesn’t need a bank intermediary or FX markup; the contractor can hold value in digital dollars or cash out locally.

What risks might businesses encounter with stablecoin payments compared to traditional payments?

Every payment method carries its own risks, but the profile shifts between stablecoins and traditional payment methods. Traditional payments concentrate risk in banks and card networks, which is tempered by regulations. Stablecoins decentralize risk into technology, issuers, and treasury operations. It’s manageable with the right safeguards but new enough to warrant extra attention. The risks associated with stablecoins include the following:

• Value stability: Stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies are designed to hold a 1:1 peg, but that peg depends on issuer reserves and market trust. Even widely used tokens can wobble briefly, as USDT did in 2022. With a bank transfer, you won’t question whether $100 is still $100; with stablecoins, you’re relying on the issuer to maintain that parity.

• Regulatory exposure: Traditional payments operate within mature legal frameworks. Stablecoins are still catching up. The US and EU are regulating stablecoin issuers, but rules vary globally. Sudden policy changes or restrictions are a real possibility, especially across jurisdictions.

• Fraud and security: Card networks provide built-in fraud detection and consumer protections. With stablecoins, there are no chargebacks or recalls. This minimizes fraud against businesses, but a mistakenly sent or hacked transaction is gone for good. Businesses must invest in secure custody, wallet controls, and verification practices.

• Operational challenges: Corporate treasuries are accustomed to banks doing much of the heavy lifting. With stablecoins, they take on custody and accounting responsibilities. If you lose a private key, the funds might be irretrievable. Accounting standards for digital assets are still developing, and auditors might treat stablecoins differently from cash equivalents.

How do stablecoins impact cross-border business payments compared to traditional methods?

Stablecoins most clearly outperform traditional payments when it comes to cross-border transactions.

International wire transfers move via the SWIFT network. A payment might pass through five or more correspondent banks, each taking a cut and delaying settlement. Funds can spend up to a week in transit with little visibility into where they are at any given moment. Costs add up quickly through up-front charges, extra fees per intermediary, and a percentage in FX spread. To mitigate them, companies often prefund accounts abroad, which ties up working capital. In some markets, local cards or banks simply can’t connect internationally, which excludes entire customer segments.

A stablecoin transfer removes the intermediaries, goes directly from sender to recipient, and is visible in real time on a public ledger. Settlement takes minutes, and blockchain costs are low. Contractors or vendors in emerging markets can receive digital dollars even without a US bank account. In countries with volatile currencies, stablecoins can hold the steady value that local systems can’t provide.

Stablecoins can reduce costs, open up new customer bases, and remove the opacity that has long plagued international money movement.

What are the compliance and regulatory considerations for stablecoins compared to traditional payments?

Traditional payment networks follow mature rulebooks. Banks enforce Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks, card networks build in consumer protections, and regulators have had decades to refine oversight. Banks and processors typically handle compliance.

But since stablecoins are newer, the frameworks are still works in progress. US and EU regulations require issuers to hold liquid reserves and offer redemption at par, pulling major stablecoins into the same regulatory category as electronic money. However, compliance varies by jurisdiction, and many regions remain cautious about cryptocurrencies. Global companies should be mindful of regional rules and lean on reliable partners to address cross-border complexities.

That means businesses still need guardrails such as counterparty verification, transaction screening, and reporting flows. But providers can embed compliance into the payment process by setting up an approved wallet list, using blockchain analytics to trace illicit funds, and running transaction screening in the background.

How do stablecoin payments affect treasury and cash management compared to traditional methods?

The purpose of corporate treasuries is to have money in the right place at the right time. With traditional systems, moving funds across borders takes days so teams often prefund local accounts, tie up capital, and manage FX swings with hedges or overnight conversions.

With stablecoins, companies can hold dollars in token form and instantly move them between subsidiaries at any time of day. That agility reduces the need to overfund foreign accounts and frees up liquidity. In inflationary economies, businesses can convert local revenue to USD-pegged stablecoins to protect value without needing offshore bank accounts. The result is less trapped cash and more effective planning.

There’s also the potential upside of programmable money. Idle balances can flow into short-term investments that earn interest until the funds are pulled. Stablecoins allow businesses to squeeze returns out of working capital (even for a few hours) in a way traditional systems don’t.

That said, adopting stablecoins does introduce internal change. Treasury teams need custody solutions, approval workflows, and accounting practices for digital assets. Private key security, multisignature controls, and audit reporting are all important. Many companies start by using providers that handle custody and conversion so they benefit from the speed without directly holding tokens.

How do customers experience stablecoin payments compared to traditional methods?

On the customer side, traditional payment methods are familiar, polished, and offer safety nets such as fraud protection and chargebacks. They can also be exclusionary. Many people can’t access global cards or reliable banking, which blocks them from buying or selling across borders.

Stablecoins can bridge that divide. A freelancer in Argentina can accept digital dollars directly; a family that receives remittances doesn’t lose a big portion to intermediaries. The trade-off is the user experience: many find wallets and private keys intimidating, and refunds aren’t automatic. Once a funds transfer is on the chain, it can’t be reversed. So businesses have to design their own refund processes.

This is where providers can make the difference. Stripe allows customers to pay in stablecoins through the same checkout they’d use for cards and handles the blockchain process in the background. Customers see only a familiar checkout page and confirmation that payment was successful.

In practice, stablecoins won’t replace cards for everyday shopping, but they can reach people who are left out by traditional payment networks and make global transactions feel local.

How Stripe Payments can help

Stripe Payments provides a unified, global payment solution that helps any business—from scaling startups to global enterprises—accept payments online, in person, and around the world. Businesses can accept stablecoin payments globally that settle as fiat in their Stripe balances.

Stripe Payments can help you:

• Optimize your checkout experience: Create a frictionless customer experience and save thousands of engineering hours with prebuilt payment UIs and access to 125+ payment methods, including stablecoins and crypto.

• Expand to new markets faster: Reach customers worldwide and reduce the complexity and cost of multicurrency management with cross-border payment options, available in 195 countries across 135+ currencies.

• Unify payments in person and online: Build a unified commerce experience across online and in-person channels to personalize interactions, reward loyalty, and grow revenue.

• Improve payment performance: Increase revenue with a range of customizable, easy-to-configure payment tools, including no-code fraud protection and advanced capabilities to improve authorization rates.

• Move faster with a flexible, reliable platform for growth: Build on a platform designed to scale with you, with 99.999% uptime and industry-leading reliability.

Learn more about how Stripe Payments can power your online and in-person payments, or get started today.