Stablecoins, Fintech, and Opportunities in Emerging Markets

Author: Jinming Source: Medium Translation: Shan Ouba, Jinse Caijing

1. Introduction: Stablecoins Are Moving Toward Mainstream Payments

Stablecoins are transitioning from native cryptocurrency use cases to real-world payment workflows. Initially used in on-chain decentralized finance (DeFi), stablecoins are now increasingly embedded in commercial payments, bank card spending, merchant collections, remittances, fund management, and emerging market dollar trading. The integration of traditional infrastructure with stablecoin payment channels is driving a structural shift in payment infrastructure, enabling it to operate 24/7, near-instantly, and cost-effectively for all economic participants. Currently, the stablecoin market circulation supply is $315 billion, with total transaction volume expected to reach $11.32 trillion by 2025. So far this year, stablecoin trading volume has hit $7.8 trillion, likely surpassing 2025 levels. To understand why stablecoin adoption is increasing, with transaction volumes now exceeding Mastercard and approaching Visa, we must examine the current payment landscape.

Today’s payment systems remain fragmented and primarily optimized for domestic transactions. However, cross-border payments are costly and complex, leading to slow transfers and high fees for consumers, trapped funds and higher costs for businesses. Stablecoins introduce a global, software-native settlement layer, allowing value to flow across open blockchain networks. The advantages of stablecoins lie not only in speed but also in the combination of speed, programmability, and interoperability. This article explores the fastest-growing B2B and B2C payment sectors, analyzes why fintech is an ideal environment for stablecoin development, and discusses why emerging markets present lucrative opportunities for fintech companies integrating stablecoins.

The stablecoin market map can be divided into multiple stacks. Note that these stacks are not mutually exclusive, and increasingly, companies operate across multiple stacks.

1. Infrastructure stack includes payment orchestration, access and withdrawal channels, wallets, and custody platforms. Orchestration and access providers facilitate conversions between fiat and stablecoins, transferring them from source chain to target chain. Wallet and custody providers ensure stablecoins are held by custodians or owners. Issuers like Reap, a card-issuing institution and a major Visa member, can provide BIN sponsorship for companies wishing to issue branded corporate cards.

2. Issuers include stablecoin issuers like Circle, Paxos, Agora, and other non-USD stablecoin issuers. The passage of laws like the GENIUS Act, MiCA, and Hong Kong’s stablecoin regulations imposes regulatory taxes on non-compliant issuers while allowing compliant ones to issue stablecoins to retail and enterprise clients. Currently, the largest issuer is Tether, with over $186 billion in USDT issued. In terms of adoption, USDT dominates globally, especially in Latin America and Africa.

3. Settlement stack consists of blockchain networks used to facilitate and process transactions. Notably, Tron is widely used in Latin America and Africa, handling most USDT transactions.

4. Liquidity architecture involves market makers, financial institutions, and exchanges. These participants provide liquidity for fiat and stablecoin trading, enabling low-slippage price execution.

5. Control stack includes KYC/AML tools, which are increasingly important as fraud and money laundering activities leverage cryptocurrencies for disguise and seamless fund transfers.

6. Application layer comprises fintech companies, marketplace platforms, and direct-to-user platforms that enable cross-border fund flows, payroll, remittances, and more.

7. B2B Stablecoin Payments: The Largest Commercial Use Case

By 2025, the B2B payments market will reach $226 billion, accounting for 58% of the real-world payment market share, with an annual growth rate of 733%. Despite rapid growth, stablecoins still account for only about 0.01% of the $1.6 trillion global B2B payments market, indicating the sector is still in early development. Cross-border payments involve different banking systems, foreign exchange costs, local regulations and restrictions, and compliance requirements. Replacing traditional payment channels with stablecoins can significantly reduce fees by 70% to 80%, shorten settlement times, and eliminate idle working capital. In emerging markets with high inflation and currency volatility, stablecoin payments have become an alternative payment method and capital management solution.

Data source: Statista

Reap is a key player in the crypto card and B2B payments space. The company holds dual Visa principal membership in Hong Kong and Mexico, enabling it to own issuing infrastructure without relying on third-party BIN sponsors. Reap’s clients can issue their own corporate cards and spend stablecoins, transforming stablecoins into a spendable transaction method. By 2025, the company processed $5.2 billion in transactions through its corporate cards and Reap Direct products.

3. B2C Stablecoin Payments

The World Bank estimates that the number of global freelancers ranges from 150 million to 300 million, with 40% in emerging economies. In 2024, this market is valued at $557 billion and is projected to grow to $1.8 trillion by 2032. More companies are hiring freelancers to maintain workforce flexibility. The explosive growth of the gig economy has increased demand for efficient, scalable payment solutions that support transactions of various sizes and multiple currencies worldwide. Stablecoins fit this need perfectly, enabling companies to pay nearly in real-time at very low costs without pre-funding bank accounts globally. Scale AI is a notable example; it uses Bridge’s stablecoin coordination platform to pay thousands of international freelancers focused on image training verification weekly. In this model, Scale AI makes a one-time fiat payment to Bridge, which then mints Circle stablecoins and distributes them directly into freelancers’ digital wallets. Recipients can then seamlessly exchange these digital assets for local fiat currency via regional exchanges.

4. Why All Fintech Companies Will Support Stablecoins

The first major fintech funding cycle was characterized by the disaggregation of traditional financial services from banks. Capital flowed into new banks, digital wallets, lending platforms, brokerages, payment apps, and consumer finance products, improving accessibility and user experience. These companies gained market share by offering mobile-first interfaces that made financial products more accessible.

Today, the integration of fintech and stablecoins is an inevitable trend, increasingly evident as regulatory transparency improves and stablecoins become more widespread. KPMG data shows that although funding in traditional fintech declined over the past three years, the industry is reaching a turning point in 2025, with total transaction volume rising from $95.5 billion in 2024 to $116 billion, especially in digital assets. Clearly, the current funding landscape is shifting toward fintech firms that can more efficiently leverage traditional financial infrastructure and blockchain networks.

The value proposition of integrating stablecoins into fintech has never been clearer. About 1.4 billion people live in countries with inflation rates exceeding 10%, creating demand for dollar-denominated stablecoin accounts. Meanwhile, the $944 billion global remittance market annually increasingly uses stablecoin payment channels to avoid the 6.4% average cost reported by the World Bank for remitting $200 through traditional channels. Large corporations are already putting these advantages into practice. For example, Starlink collects payments in Nigerian Naira and converts them hourly into USD for remittance, minimizing currency risk. As regulatory clarity, stablecoin infrastructure maturity, and adoption accelerate, fintech companies that delay integrating stablecoins risk being overtaken by competitors offering 24/7 settlement, programmable payments, and embedded yield services.

5. Opportunities in Emerging Markets

Emerging markets are likely to become one of the most important environments for stablecoin fintech development, given the more acute pain points. In Africa, low banking penetration and credit card ownership have spurred rapid growth in mobile payments and digital wallets, which are more accessible and user-friendly than traditional banking.

Although the US dollar is the primary trading currency in emerging economies, access remains a constraint. The Atlantic Council reports that 54% of exports are dollar-denominated, and 88% of foreign exchange transactions are quoted in dollars—making dollar access critical for businesses worldwide. However, capital controls make it difficult for emerging markets to obtain dollars. In regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, this friction is especially severe. Limited liquidity among local currencies leads to high-cost, time-consuming intra-continental payments, often requiring transactions through U.S. bank intermediaries, increasing settlement delays and costs—active correspondent banking relationships have fallen 40% since 2011, worsening the problem. Access to dollars is only half the issue: companies expanding abroad face significant hurdles in repatriating funds, as assets in volatile local currencies impact their balance sheets, and they rely on costly intermediaries, enduring delays and high FX costs to bring funds home, resulting in low cash flow efficiency and currency risk.

In these markets, stablecoins can serve both retail consumers and enterprises. For example, Nigeria is one of Africa’s most developed economies and the largest stablecoin trading market on the continent. The Central Bank aims for 95% financial inclusion by 2028, creating a favorable regulatory environment for fintech expansion. Platforms like PalmPay, with large user and merchant networks, can leverage the compounding benefits of integrated stablecoins. PalmPay offers B2B and B2C payments, including zero-fee transfers, bill payments, savings accounts, instant credit, and merchant payment processing. Currently, PalmPay has over 1.1 million merchants and 35 million users across Africa, with annual transaction volumes in the billions. Paga also signals progress; it recently partnered with Crossmint to bring multi-chain stablecoin infrastructure to Africa, indicating that fintech platforms are exploring programmable wallets and stablecoin payment integration within existing payment networks. Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy, accounts for nearly 60% of the region’s fintech market, with over 80% of online payments made via digital wallets. Instead of requiring users to download separate crypto wallets, stablecoin features are integrated into familiar fintech interfaces, leveraging existing network effects and competitive advantages.

6. Conclusion

Looking ahead, competition in fintech will evolve toward providing native stablecoin banking services, programmable fund management, cross-border e-commerce, digital wallets, and alternative credit products on unified platforms. Emerging markets still hold vast untapped potential; companies that have scaled and gained consumer trust in these underserved regions will be especially well-positioned to strengthen their competitive edge.