Moving money across borders can still be a time consuming process.
Stablecoins are rewiring the global financial plumbing, and over the last 12 months alone, real world stablecoin payment volume set a staggering $7.4 trillion and financial platforms like Land by partnering with infrastructure providers including BBNK using stablecoin rails to settle remittances instantly at a fraction of the traditional costs.
Now earlier this year a partnering with. and JPMorgan adding blockchain capabilities to its network.
Well joining us live here at the New York Stock Exchange to break it all down is Keith Vander Lees, US general manager at BBNK.
Keith, great to have you here.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Well, we've kicked off the second half of 2026, and when we're looking at the stablecoin market, there is a lot to consider.
So first, when it comes to remittances and global payments, give us the lay of the land.
Yes, so.
We've seen a tremendous growth in our embedded wallet infrastructure that we offer to our clients, and that's really been a shift from the traditional use of stablecoins for crypto trading to more payment use cases.
So fintechs, payment service providers, they're starting to use our wallet infrastructure to move funds globally.
So what they're doing with these wallets is consumer remittances, but then also businesses who need to Pay suppliers generally we say that suppliers in the global south oftentimes would prefer to receive stablecoins versus their local fiat currencies.
Yes, and I also do want to dive into the partnership with Coreay.
So what's going on with that?
Yes, so Copay is a great partner.
We're excited to see them start to use stablecoins within their multi-currency wallet.
It's just another rail for them to provide their Customers who are mid-sized corporate entities who do have payments throughout the world, they're going to use stablecoins along with their other fiat currencies that they pay that they offer to their customers.
And when it comes to the stablecoin space, a lot has been focused on what's happening in terms of volume as well as the growth in the space.
But as we head into the second half of this year, what are your expectations?
Yeah, you know, it's very interesting because we've seen a decoupling of stablecoin volume away from the price of Bitcoin and the traditional use case of stablecoins of crypto trading.
So we've seen real world adoption of stablecoins for payments.
I expect that trend will continue.
We're also very interested in how with the passage of Genius last year and hopefully clarity will.
Pass soon, the broader adoption of digital assets more generally.
We've seen a lot of interest from banks in how they can use stablecoins alongside an increasing interest in tokenized deposits.
So we're very bolus on the future of stablecoins and more broadly digital assets.
Yes, and since you did bring up genius, I do want to get your expectations for clarity.
So here we are standing on the floor of the Stock Exchange and of course this is the center of Trad 5, but when we're talking about the nation's capital, we are counting down to the August recess for Congress.
So what do you expect to see between here and now and also as we head into the rest of this year if clarity does not get passed by that deadline?
You know, if it doesn't pass, I think genius has done enough for our industry to Drive enough adoption for payments use cases.
I think clarity does provide clarity to some other forms of tokenized assets, whether that's how tokenized deposits interact with stablecoins or some other assets.
The big question is around yield.
I think there's multiple ways to solve that problem today regardless of what happens with clarity, so I don't see.
Obviously it would be good if it passes.
If it doesn't pass, I think the industry will continue to grow regardless.
Yes, and while I have you here, there might be viewers out there who are paying more attention to the price of what's happening in terms of crypto, in particular Bitcoin or say ETH, but what are you most excited about when it comes To digital assets, especially on the technology side, so it's the underlying technology, blockchain, right?
So I think what blockchain can do, we're seeing it in payments, but there's other types of technology that are running off of legacy tech, right?
So what the TTCC has done with equities, I think is very interesting what Securitize is doing.
I think that.
Is companies leveraging this new technology beyond what we've seen with stablecoins, so moving into a world where blockchain is just a technology that has moving all of these industries into the next generation.
Yes, and we had DTCC on yesterday here on FinTech TV, but as we move forward, of course we're paying attention to what Of this means for the institutional side as well as for retail investors, and we're not just talking about the US but across the world when it comes to real world utilities.
So how do you see this all playing out when it comes to the timeline?
Yes, so that is very interesting because we've seen with the passage of Genius many other countries follow suit and that has kind of across the globe whether That's traditional FIs or other companies embrace blockchain based payments in their various different use cases so Genius has definitely accelerated and the demand oftentimes is greater outside of the US right the payment system in the US it's pretty robust you and I are probably not going to be paying with stablecoin, but outside of the US in Latin America, in Africa.
Where the financial infrastructure isn't as robust, stablecoins provide even greater value to those consumers and businesses there.
And as we look beyond the second half of this year to the next 5 to 10 years, how do you see stablecoin adoption actually growing as well as the actual applications?
Yes, I think one of the things I'm really excited about that I think we're Scratching the surface on is the programmable nature of digital assets and specifically stablecoins, right?
So we talk about the five different characteristics of stablecoins.
They're instant.
They're 24/7.
They're global, right?
And that's the first real use case that we've seen cross-border payments to complement the traditional fiat payment flows.
They're also very transparent.
That helps from an AML perspective which is very.
Important when we think about regulated entities such as ourselves when we do cross border payments.
The 5th characteristic is the programmable nature.
Using smart contracts can really unlock a lot of value in our payment foes.
Yes.
And finally, Keith, before I let you go, we're hearing of payments companies as well as Prat getting involved in this space.
So how do you think all of this will shake out eventually?
I know you don't have a crystal ball.
Yeah, I think it's really been a lot of fun seeing the combination of DeFi and Tradfi come together.
I think Tradfi is learning a lot from DeFi and DeFi is learning a lot from Trad.
So the combination of the new technology that DeFi is bringing.
With the institutional knowledge and the trust that Trad5 companies bring is just going to improve both consumer and businesses' lives.
Well, Keith, it was great having you on the show.
Thank you so much for joining us here at the New York Stock Exchange.
This is a space we'll continue to monitor very closely, so I appreciate your time.
Thank you very much.
