The goal is to provide a familiar experience regardless of what’s happening under the hood. “Payments should just work” could be one of the overarching themes of the 2020s FinTech, banking and crypto innovation landscape.
It will likely be a major theme of the payments landscape of the 2030s, too.
Increasingly, the payments landscape is eyeing digital asset innovations, such as stablecoin payments, to deliver on the emerging digital expectation layer consumers have come to prefer.
“All of this comes down to what consumers and businesses want. It’s not just about cost, but also trust, simplicity and convenience,” Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president, blockchain and digital assets at Mastercard, told PYMNTS. “Customers want an end-to-end experience.”
“For consumer adoption, most people won’t even know they’re using stablecoins. In the U.S., there’s already a robust electronic infrastructure of wallets, bank accounts, etc. Crypto-native users may interact directly with the blockchain, but most won’t. The real utility for them comes through simple experiences, like using a card linked to a stablecoin account,” Dhamodharan added.
Read also: Making Stablecoins ‘Grandma-Friendly’
Stablecoins are the ‘Goldilocks’ of Cryptocurrencies
While traditional crypto assets like bitcoin and ethereum have dominated headlines, it’s stablecoins — digital assets pegged to fiat currencies — that are gaining traction in the payments world. Unlike more volatile cryptocurrencies, stablecoins offer price stability, making them ideal for practical, everyday use.
Payments stakeholders are recalibrating against this backdrop. In the past, many feared regulatory pushback or reputational risk. Today, those concerns haven’t disappeared, but there’s a new urgency to stay one step ahead of marketplace demands by building the future themselves.
“Moving money isn’t the same as creating a complete use case. You need to build trust and a great user experience. That’s why we created our crypto credential product — to mirror the seamlessness of today’s card networks,” Dhamodharan said.
“As stablecoins move from trading tools to real-world use, the question becomes: how do you send money easily? Right now, sending money abroad often means figuring out someone’s blockchain address, assuming they’re tech-savvy. That’s inefficient. So, Mastercard offered a simpler solution: I just need your email. I enter it in my wallet, and the system handles the rest — ensuring compliance, checking the network, verifying KYC and meeting travel rule requirements,” he added. “It’s about building trust into the system.”
After all, it’s not about whether a product is blockchain-powered. It’s whether the payment works better than the incumbent mechanism. Increasingly, solutions such as stablecoins appear as though they could have the potential to do so.
See more: Mastercard: Building Trust Into the Blockchain Unlocks Its Cross-Border Potential
The Unique Compliance Risks of Stablecoin Transactions
What began as a tool for traders is quickly becoming a new enabler in global finance. Stablecoins, when paired with thoughtful design and responsible partnerships, are helping to reimagine everything from remittances to retail payments. Stablecoins offer low volatility and near-instant settlement. This makes them attractive not just to crypto traders, but also to corporates, FinTechs and international businesses transacting across borders.
But for all the technology at work, the drivers of adoption remain remarkably human: trust, convenience and the ability to get things done without friction. However, this efficiency brings with it a new class of compliance risks.
Traditional anti-money laundering (AML) frameworks rely heavily on identifying counterparties — a task made more complex when stablecoin transactions are pseudonymous and global in scope. Cross-border flows in particular can obscure jurisdictional clarity, making it harder to apply consistent compliance standards.
This is where KYB (know your business) plays a critical role. Unlike KYC (know your customer), which focuses on individuals, KYB is essential for identifying and verifying businesses, especially those participating in or facilitating stablecoin usage. In a cross-border context, KYB helps uncover beneficial ownership, sanctions exposure and jurisdictional risks before value moves on-chain.
In the end, the story of crypto adoption may not be one of disruption versus legacy. It might simply be about feedback loops. In 2025, the user is the signal — and the payments landscape is listening.
