Blockchain Payments in Focus: From Experimentation to Implementation (EY)

Summary

• Corporate stablecoin adoption live in production doubled from 9% in 2025 to 18% in 2026.p.9
• Regulatory uncertainty remains the top barrier to adoption, cited by 76% of surveyed organizations.p.10
• A multi-rail market is taking shape, with 34% of total respondents expressing a preference for using both stablecoins and tokenized deposits.p.11
• Cross-border supplier payments lead use cases, selected by 53% of corporate and financial institution respondents.p.12
• 63% of corporates are likely to adopt blockchain payment services offered by their current banking or payments provider.p.18
• Only 9% of financial institutions offering or planning stablecoin services plan to build capabilities entirely in-house.p.25
• 64% of financial institutions view blockchain payments as a moderate or major opportunity over the next five years.p.27

Key insights

1. 76% of corporate respondents view connectivity to ERP, TMS, and banking platforms as very important or critical to scaling adoption.p.4
2. The share of financial institutions exploring stablecoins without concrete plans dropped from 57% in 2025 to 23% in 2026.p.9
3. Increased regulatory clarity accelerated stablecoin adoption timelines for 49% of survey respondents.p.10
4. 60% of all respondents report being likely to use either stablecoins or tokenized deposits in the next six to 12 months.p.13
5. 44% of respondents expect significant improvement in faster cash flow cycles from using stablecoins.p.14
6. 67% of corporate respondents identified reduced transaction costs as a top-three expected benefit of blockchain payments.p.16
7. 73% of corporate respondents expect annual financial benefits equal to at least 1% of annual revenue from adopting blockchain payments.p.17
8. 53% of corporates identify cross-border payment automation and automated payment reconciliation as their most valuable smart-contract payment capabilities.p.20
9. 74% of financial institutions plan to enable blockchain payment capabilities for FinTechs or platforms.p.22
10. 38% of financial institution respondents expect blockchain-based payments to account for 5% to 10% of total global payment value by 2031.p.27