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Are Stablecoins the Future of Finance in APAC? - Qore3’s Coverage

Are Stablecoins the Future of Finance in APAC? - Qore3’s Coverage

18 Sep, 2025
**Are Stablecoins the Future of Finance in APAC? - Qore3’s Coverage**

“Are Stablecoins the Future of Finance in APAC?”—a Fintech News Network webinar hosted by Fintech News Singapore on 18 September 2025—brought together operators from a major bank, an infrastructure provider, a payments firm, and a regional stablecoin issuer to compare what’s actually working across the region: policy, live use cases, and the rough edges teams still hit in production. The format was straightforward: a news brief upfront, a candid panel in the middle, and clear takeaways to close. 

This webinar brought four useful vantage points into one room: DBS (Evy Theunis), Fireblocks (Amy Zhang), dtcpay (Sam Lin), and StraitsX (Tianwei Liu). Vincent Fong of Fintech News Network steered the conversation toward operations rather than hype, which made the next bit land even harder.

Why 2025 Hits Different

**3 shifts converged. **

  1. Policy clarity: the US GENIUS Act created a federal framework for payment stablecoins. Even if you operate in Singapore or Hong Kong, clear US rules influence dollar rails, counterparties, and risk committees. (Congress.gov)
  2. Liquidity: from Fireblocks’ public numbers, stablecoins accounted for nearly half of all transactions on its platform in 2024, representing about 15% of global stablecoin volume. (Fireblocks)
  3. User experience: refunds, reconciliation, and time certainty decide whether payments scale. dtcpay publicly committed to phase out BTC and ETH at checkout and support stablecoins + fiat from January 2025, citing what merchants actually need. (dtcpay.com)

DBS Pulls A New Lever: RLUSD × sgBENJI

On the morning of the webinar, DBS, Franklin Templeton, and Ripple announced tokenised money-market trading for eligible investors on DBS Digital Exchange. Franklin Templeton’s tokenised USD money-market fund sgBENJI will list alongside Ripple’s USD stablecoin RLUSD; DBS will also explore enabling sgBENJI as collateral for credit, with the bank acting as collateral agent. Yield, liquidity, and credit in one workflow. (DBS Bank)

Evy Theunis put a banker’s frame around it. DBS has been building toward convergence for years with tokenised deposits, programmable payments, and CBDC pilots. Hence, pairing a regulated USD stablecoin with a tokenised MMF feels less like a stunt and more like the next step in 24/7 treasury.

Four Lenses, Four Voices

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Bank View: Tokenised Deposits Meet Stablecoins (And CBDCs)

Evy Theunis (DBS) argued that stablecoins and tokenised deposits meet at the customer layer, where rules live inside value movement—escrow windows, scheduled disbursements, multi-step approvals. Her “what’s next” list was pragmatic: explore borrowing/lending against tokenised MMF units and extend always-on connectivity with industry rails. Project Guardian repo experiments were a rehearsal; this, she implied, is production. (DBS Bank)

Infrastructure View: Liquidity Plus Compliance

Amy Zhang (Fireblocks) traced the tipping point to regulatory clarity meeting secondary liquidity. She also cautioned that “dealing with stablecoins” isn’t magically easy. Instruments differ from crypto, yes, but they still ride the same chains—which means policy controls, permissions, auditability, and security matters. Fireblocks’ own telemetry underlines it: in 2024, stablecoins were nearly half of platform transactions and continue to rise, with the company handling ~15% of global stablecoin volume. (Fireblocks)

Payments View: UX Wins Or Nothing Wins

Sam Lin (dtcpay) kept it simple. They tested BTC, ETH, and stablecoins at the point of sale. Once refunds and reconciliation entered the picture, stablecoins dominated and volatility lost. That’s why dtcpay published its plan to support only stablecoins (plus fiat) for DPT payments starting January 2025. Programmability also moves from buzzword to tool here; PSPs can bake settlement rules for marketplaces, trade finance, even payroll. (dtcpay.com)

Issuer View: A Stablecoin Transfer Is Settlement

Tianwei Liu (StraitsX) focused on merchant math. When a transfer is being settled, there’s no T+2, no “bank holiday in X,” and often a shift from cross-border pricing to domestic-rate economics. Their public case with Alipay+ & Grab in Singapore shows the playbook: one integration, 24/7 settlement, real-time FX, and a smoother merchant experience at scale. (straitsx.com)

USD Today, Local Tomorrow

For now, USD-denominated stablecoins dominate because liquidity pools are deepest, much like historical SWIFT patterns for non-G10 pairs. Corridor math will change as local-currency stablecoins in APAC accumulate depth. Regulators in the region are already moving (Hong Kong’s licensing regime), which should unlock those local pools over time. 

Public Rails & Private Tokens: Not Either/Or

Government efforts (Nexus, bilateral QR links, CBDCs) harden slowly because they stitch national systems. Stablecoin rails let PSPs build ground-up connectivity now, then route into public hubs as they mature. The two approaches can run in parallel and even reinforce each other; they don’t have to be at odds.

The Middle Layer That Decides Success

Coins don’t make this work. Controls do.

  • Multi-party approvals
  • Role-based thresholds and time locks for large disbursements.
  • Segregated wallets—operational, reserve, settlement—to keep flows clean.
  • Full audit trails tied to human identities and business events.
  • Reconciliation hooks to ERP and bank APIs so accounting isn’t an ad-hoc project.

This is where many pilots stall. It’s also where success compounds.

Myths That Still Linger

Vincent also asked the panel to name the biggest myths or misconceptions about stablecoins. Here’s a clean compilation of their answers:

“It’s Regulatory Arbitrage.” In 2025, less so. Frameworks in Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States impose explicit, high bars on issuers and the systems they run under the GENIUS Act and local guidance. (Congress.gov)

“USD Will Always Be The Only Option.” Liquidity begins with dollars, yes. But APAC regulators are enabling local-currency stablecoins that will carry their own corridors as depth arrives. (Reuters)

“Big Numbers Equal Big Impact.” The US$27.6T figure is huge. Impact still depends on design—governance, policy controls, and accounting treatment. (World Economic Forum)

Where Qore3 Fits: The Control Plane For Programmable Money

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QoreWallet sits where real adoption lives: controls and custody. It combines MPC-secured wallets with a policy engine that mirrors enterprise workflows so that money moves only when the right people, roles, and rules say so.

  • Approvals That Match Your Org: four-eyes/six-eyes, step-up approvals above set amounts, and per-role limits.
  • Policy You Can Explain: per-transaction, per-corridor, and time-of-day rules; optional time locks for large releases.
  • Clean Wallet Hygiene: segregated operational, reserve, and settlement wallets to keep flows tidy.
  • Audit You Can Trust: end-to-end logs that tie on-chain events to human identities and business context.
  • Plug-In, Don’t Bolt-On: API-first integration with ERP/treasury systems for reconciliation without shadow spreadsheets.

Closing Thoughts: From Pilots To P&L

What stood out from this webinar wasn’t just mere ideology but immaculate execution. A bank put yield, liquidity, and credit on one rail. An infra provider showed flows tilting decisively toward stablecoins. A PSP chose predictable refunds over price swings. An issuer reminded everyone that a transfer can be the settlement. Different seats, same direction.

If you’re deciding what to do next, don’t chase a token but design a system. Write your approvals in one paragraph. Set limits you can live with on a bad day. Decide who signs, when, and under what thresholds. Then make the software obey the policy, not the other way around.

Do that and the nice-to-have becomes measurable: hours pulled out of reconciliation, cash unlocked from pre-funding, FX spread shaved because value moves when you need it to. Cross-border starts to feel domestic not because the world changed, but because your controls did. That’s the work that turns promising pilots into balance-sheet results.

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