Banks Build Stablecoin infrastructure was a central theme at MERGE Madrid 2026, where financial institutions discussed building payment and settlement systems for digital assets. The conference took place from October 27 to 29 at the Bolsa de Madrid stock exchange and Palacio de Cibeles.
Participants described banks moving beyond client cryptocurrency trading toward backend systems for stablecoins and tokenized assets. The discussion covered payment rails, custody, settlement and links between existing financial networks, including blockchain finance at banking conferences. A conference report on bank infrastructure also detailed views from payments firms, regulators and digital asset companies.
Banks Build Stablecoin Payment Rails
Jordan Wain, Global Policy Lead at Chainalysis, said overall cryptocurrency economic activity reached roughly $9.4 trillion between June 2025 and June 2026. Total volume edged down 1.6% year-over-year, while cross-border stablecoin transfers rose by 80% over the same period.
The figures pointed to increased stablecoin use for payments even as token market prices softened, according to the report. Alexandra Soroko of Visa highlighted card settlement using stablecoins, which she said lets institutions settle obligations around the clock, seven days a week. She identified corporate treasury management and cross-border commercial transactions as key drivers.
Marie Winter, managing director of OSL EU, said the company secured its Markets in Crypto-Assets license in Austria in early July. It is applying for payment institution and Electronic Money Institution licenses, with plans to focus on third-party payments, token exchanges and fiat on/off-ramp infrastructure across Europe.
Financial Institutions Build Digital Asset Systems
Stijn Vander Straeten, CEO of Crypto Finance Group, a Deutsche Börse subsidiary, said most current bank revenue from digital assets comes from basic client trading desks. He said investment is also going into backend architecture, including staking protocols, tokenized deposit systems and settlement networks.
Executives from Commerzbank, N26 and Applied Blockchain described banks as potential neutral infrastructure operators. In that model, institutions provide systems for corporate clients to transact instead of holding large stablecoin reserves directly on their balance sheets. The approach connects with broader industry interest in tokenized assets on blockchain.
Mirko Pfiffner, senior solutions manager at Bank Frick, said crypto exchanges and liquidity providers continue to rely on banking relationships for fiat flows. He described a possible specialization in which banks focus on payment rails, custody or trading rather than attempting every function.
António Henriques, CEO of Bison Bank, said his institution connects traditional banking clients and crypto firms while helping them navigate regulatory compliance. Shrutisagar Chandrasekaran of Fireblocks described workforce training, compliance processes and corporate governance as operational challenges in digital asset integration.
Luis Nacarino of Santander CIB argued that digital currency networks need to connect instead of becoming isolated systems. Alberto Carlos Alonso Temprado of Iberpay said blockchain should enhance existing European payment systems rather than start from scratch. Those priorities echo discussion of practical enterprise blockchain solutions.
Tokenization and Automated Payments Raise Questions
Abel Peña, chief strategy officer at Bit2Me, announced approval for STX, a platform intended to tokenize corporate shares and bonds for medium-sized enterprises. Experts from BBVA and Bullish cautioned that tokenized assets need sufficient market liquidity, particularly during heightened market volatility.
Conference panelists from Mastercard, Tether and the Cardano Foundation discussed artificial intelligence agents making autonomous transactions. They said digital identities and explicit authorization protocols are important safeguards before software executes payments.
Guillaume Rodenas of TRM Labs said know-your-customer compliance for AI payment agents must identify the human or company with ultimate control of an algorithm. Luis Ayala of BitGo discussed agentic wallets, AI systems that use large language models to settle transactions for users. The report presented these as emerging payment concepts, not as a current deployment claim.
Western Union and Qivalis Describe Settlement Plans
Western Union’s Malcolm Clarke and Anchorage Digital’s Emilio Rivero Coello discussed USDPT, a dollar-backed token Anchorage issued on Solana in May. The report said it was deployed in remittance markets including Bolivia and the Philippines as a back-end settlement mechanism across Western Union’s local agent network, not as a retail consumer wallet.
Anchorage Digital said replacing pre-funded correspondent bank accounts with liquid stablecoin balances can reduce international settlement from several business days to minutes. The report also described Qivalis, an Amsterdam-based consortium that grew from nine founding institutions to 37 financial organizations across 15 countries.
Qivalis plans to issue a regulated Euro stablecoin on the public Ethereum network under the MiCA framework and direct supervision of the Dutch Central Bank. The report put Euro-backed stablecoins below $1 billion in market capitalization, compared with over $300 billion for US dollar-pegged stablecoins globally. These plans and figures framed the conference’s practical next steps: institutions are developing systems while addressing liquidity, compliance and network interoperability.
