54% of Non-Users Plan to Adopt Stablecoins Within 12 Months

More than half of enterprises that have not yet deployed stablecoins say they plan to start within the next six to twelve months. That finding comes from EY-Parthenon's 2025 stablecoin survey, which polled 350 corporate and financial institution decision-makers in June 2025, shortly after the U.S. Senate passed the GENIUS Act. At the time of the survey, only 13% of respondents reported active stablecoin usage. But the intent signal from the remaining 87% was striking: 54% of non-users expected to begin using stablecoins within a year.

A follow-up survey released in October 2026 suggests that intent is converting into action. The EY-Parthenon 2026 Blockchain Payments Survey of 521 decision-makers found that 18% of corporates now run stablecoins in production, roughly double the rate from the prior year. Among financial institutions, the shift is even more dramatic: the share offering or planning to offer stablecoin services within two years jumped from 30% to 69%.

What the 2025 Survey Found

The original EY-Parthenon survey captured a market at an inflection point. Most organizations were not yet using stablecoins, but the majority of those non-users had adoption on their roadmap. Three data points stood out.

• 13% of financial institutions and corporates globally were actively using stablecoins in some capacity
• 54% of non-users planned to adopt stablecoins within 6 to 12 months
• 41% of organizations already using stablecoins reported cost savings of at least 10% on cross-border payments

The survey was fielded in June 2025, immediately following Senate passage of the GENIUS Act. That timing matters: the legislative momentum appears to have shifted enterprise sentiment from cautious exploration to concrete planning.

Context on the 54% figure: This measures stated intent, not commitment. Survey respondents were decision-makers at financial institutions and corporates. Actual adoption will depend on regulatory finalization, vendor readiness, and internal approval processes. But even with typical intent-to-action attrition, the signal is historically strong for enterprise financial infrastructure.

How the 2026 Data Confirms the Trend

One year later, the follow-up data suggests the adoption intent was not hollow. The October 2026 EY-Parthenon survey expanded the sample to 521 decision-makers and found measurable progress across both corporates and financial institutions.

The doubling of corporate production usage from ~9% to 18% aligns with the adoption timeline that the 54% of non-users projected in 2025. Not all of them followed through: intent-to-action conversion rarely exceeds 30 to 40% in enterprise technology adoption. But the directional movement is clear, and the pipeline of organizations actively planning deployments continues to grow.

What Is Driving Enterprise Adoption Intent

Regulatory clarity from the GENIUS Act

The GENIUS Act, enacted in July 2025, created the first comprehensive federal framework for stablecoin regulation in the United States. The law requires permitted stablecoin issuers to maintain full reserve backing with high-quality liquid assets and imposes AML and sanctions obligations on issuers. Its effective date is January 18, 2027, and rulemaking by Treasury, FinCEN, and OFAC was still underway as of mid-2026.

For enterprise compliance and procurement teams, this regulatory clarity removes the single biggest blocker. Before the GENIUS Act, organizations hesitated because there was no federal legal framework defining what a stablecoin is, who can issue one, and what reserves must back it. With those questions answered in statute, general counsel can sign off on stablecoin pilots without the open-ended regulatory risk that stalled earlier efforts.

Documented cost savings

The economic case is becoming harder to ignore. Among enterprises already using stablecoins, 41% reported cost savings of 10% or more on cross-border payments in the 2025 EY-Parthenon survey. A separate 2026 study by Cybrid surveying 468 executives found average savings of approximately 35%, with firms processing over $100 million in monthly volume reporting savings near 47%.

These savings come primarily from eliminating intermediaries in correspondent banking chains. A traditional cross-border wire may pass through three to five banks, each adding fees and settlement delays. Stablecoin transfers settle on-chain or on Layer 2 networks in minutes, with total costs that can fall below $1 per transaction regardless of amount. For a detailed breakdown, see our analysis of enterprise stablecoin cost savings.

Competitive pressure

As early adopters capture efficiency gains, the cost of inaction rises for competitors. When an enterprise's supplier or customer begins requesting stablecoin settlement, the pressure to support it shifts from strategic interest to operational necessity. The 2026 survey's finding that 69% of financial institutions now offer or plan stablecoin services accelerates this dynamic: when banks start offering the product, corporate clients gain access without building their own infrastructure.

Barriers That Remain

Despite strong intent signals, significant obstacles persist. Multiple surveys in 2025 and 2026 converge on the same top three barriers, though they disagree on rank order depending on the respondent pool.

A PYMNTS survey of 60 U.S. CFOs in March 2026 found that two-thirds cited regulatory or compliance uncertainty as the top barrier for stablecoins, with 43% flagging integration with existing financial systems. This is notable because the GENIUS Act had already been enacted: for many enterprises, the issue is not the absence of a law but the absence of final implementing rules. Treasury, FinCEN, and OFAC had issued proposals but not finalized regulations as of mid-2026.

Integration complexity

Enterprise payment systems run on decades-old infrastructure: ERP integrations, bank APIs, reconciliation workflows, and accounting systems that expect fiat-denominated transactions. Adding a stablecoin payment channel requires touching each of these layers. The challenge is not that stablecoin APIs are difficult (most are simpler than legacy banking APIs) but that the surrounding enterprise infrastructure was not designed for programmable money.

Counterparty and custody considerations

Enterprise treasury teams must evaluate counterparty risk across the stablecoin stack: the issuer (reserve quality and redemption reliability), the custody provider (key management and insurance), and the settlement layer (chain security and finality). For organizations accustomed to FDIC-insured bank deposits, this multi-layered risk assessment is unfamiliar territory. The GENIUS Act's reserve requirements help on the issuer side, but custody and settlement risks require independent evaluation.

Adoption by Use Case

Cross-border payments dominate the enterprise stablecoin use case landscape, but the applications are diversifying. The 2026 EY-Parthenon survey found that 45% of corporates and 53% of financial institutions preferred using both stablecoins and tokenized deposits rather than choosing one over the other.

Cross-border B2B payments

This remains the primary driver. Businesses with international suppliers, subsidiaries, or customers face the highest friction from traditional SWIFT-based correspondent banking and stand to gain the most from stablecoin settlement. The combination of lower fees, faster settlement (minutes versus days), and 24/7 availability makes this use case the most compelling ROI story for CFOs.

Treasury management and liquidity

Multinational corporations are exploring stablecoins for internal treasury operations: moving dollars between subsidiaries, managing multi-entity cash positions, and reducing trapped capital in correspondent bank accounts. The near-instant settlement means less cash sitting idle in transit. For a deeper look at the treasury use case, see our guide to stablecoin multicurrency treasury operations.

Vendor and contractor payouts

Companies with distributed workforces or international contractor networks are adopting stablecoin payouts to reduce costs and accelerate settlement. This use case is particularly strong in regions where off-ramps to local currency are well-developed, such as Latin America and Southeast Asia. Our analysis of stablecoin freelancer and gig payments covers this corridor in detail.

SMBs are signaling even stronger interest: While this article focuses on enterprise adoption, smaller businesses show even greater enthusiasm. A 2026 survey found that 81% of small and medium-sized businesses expressed interest in stablecoin payments. See our analysis of SMB stablecoin adoption intent for the data.

Modeling the Adoption Curve

If 54% of non-users follow through on their stated adoption intent, the market structure shifts dramatically. In the 2025 survey, 13% were active users and 87% were non-users. If 54% of that 87% adopt, approximately 47% of organizations would be using stablecoins: a roughly 3.6x increase in the adopter base.

Historical precedent suggests the actual conversion rate will be lower. Enterprise technology adoption intent typically converts at 30 to 40% in the first cycle, according to patterns observed in cloud computing and API-based banking adoption. That would imply roughly 16 to 21% of non-users converting, bringing total adoption to 27 to 31% of organizations within 12 to 18 months of the survey.

The 2026 data supports the lower bound of this estimate. Corporate production usage doubled from ~9% to 18%, and the financial institution pipeline expanded from 30% to 69% planning or offering services. Extrapolating forward, total enterprise stablecoin usage could reach 25 to 35% by mid-2027, assuming GENIUS Act implementing rules are finalized and bank-integrated solutions continue expanding.

What accelerates the curve

• Final GENIUS Act rules from Treasury and OCC removing remaining compliance ambiguity
• Banks offering stablecoin settlement as a standard treasury service, lowering the integration burden for corporates
• Major ERP and accounting software vendors adding native stablecoin support to reconciliation workflows
• Network effects as more counterparties in a given industry adopt, creating pressure on holdouts

What slows it down

• Delayed or restrictive final rulemaking that reintroduces compliance uncertainty
• A major stablecoin depeg event or issuer failure that damages institutional confidence
• Lack of qualified custody and insurance solutions for enterprise-scale holdings
• Competing technologies (tokenized deposits, CBDCs) capturing the same use cases with different risk profiles

Implications for Infrastructure Providers

The adoption intent data carries a clear signal for infrastructure builders: the bottleneck is shifting from demand to supply. Enterprises that want to adopt stablecoins need payment APIs, custody solutions, compliance tooling, and settlement infrastructure that meets their operational requirements. The merchant adoption guide covers the practical integration path.

One dimension that enterprises increasingly evaluate is custody model. The default for most enterprise stablecoin pilots today is custodial: a regulated third party holds the keys. But as organizations mature in their usage and seek to reduce custodial risk, self-custodial infrastructure becomes a differentiator. Solutions like Spark's SDK allow enterprises to build stablecoin payment flows where users retain control of their own keys, eliminating the need to trust a custodial intermediary with funds in transit. This matters for organizations where custodial concentration risk is a compliance concern or where self-sovereign control over funds aligns with treasury policy.

For developers building enterprise stablecoin infrastructure, the Spark SDK provides APIs for self-custodial stablecoin transfers that settle instantly on a Bitcoin Layer 2. The developer documentation covers integration patterns for payment flows, and General Bread demonstrates what a consumer-facing Spark-powered wallet looks like in production.

Key Takeaways

The 54% adoption intent figure is a leading indicator, not a guarantee. But the 2026 follow-up data confirms that the signal was directionally correct: corporate stablecoin production usage doubled, and financial institution service offerings more than doubled. Three conclusions hold across the data.

1. Regulatory clarity is the single most important driver. The GENIUS Act turned enterprise interest into enterprise action, even before final rules were published.
2. Cost savings are real and measurable. The 41% of early adopters reporting 10%+ savings on cross-border payments provides the ROI evidence that CFOs need for budget approval.
3. The market is entering a phase transition. With 69% of financial institutions planning to offer stablecoin services, the availability of bank-integrated solutions will lower the integration barrier for the next wave of corporate adopters.

For further analysis of the stablecoin market trajectory, see our research on stablecoin supply growth and the trillion-dollar trajectory for the asset class.

This article is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial or investment advice. Bitcoin and Layer 2 protocols involve technical and financial risk. Always do your own research and understand the tradeoffs before using any protocol.