(16 March 2026 – Global) Banking licenses are the new holy grail in stablecoin markets as a shift in focus from $33 trillion in transaction volume to control of institutional flows gathers pace.
The objective is to embed stablecoin issuance, custody and settlement inside regulated institutions that enterprises and financial firms already view as credible. The new bank rush includes stablecoin issuers, asset managers, and even a Japanese multinational, all striving to crack the stablecoin economy by providing institutional access through a bank.
Since 2025, at least 15 applications have been submitted for banking charters overseen by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) by firms seeking to offer digital asset-related services.
Large companies are unlikely to run payroll, supplier payments or treasury operations on tokens issued by lightly regulated entities. They are far more willing to experiment when stablecoins sit within chartered banks supervised like financial utilities. For incumbent banks, the shift is both a threat and an opportunity according to S&P. Stablecoins may disintermediate deposits and payments or become programmable extensions of existing rails.
As a new Bank-Fintech tie-up is announced almost daily for new Stablecoin development, East & Partners investigated what are the most exciting on-chain financial services innovations emerging globally.
“Banks face a more complicated reckoning. On one hand, regulated stablecoin issuers threaten to disintermediate traditional payments and deposits, especially in wholesale and cross-border use cases where margins are already thin. On the other, banks that partner with or replicate these models can defend their position by embedding stablecoins into existing cash-management, custody and treasury services. The prize is not retail wallets but control over institutional payment flows” states S&P Senior Analyst, Sampath Sha, CFA.
“Once stablecoin issuers gain OCC charters and access to Fed master accounts, stablecoins could reshape corporate payments both inside the US and in cross-border flows. Stablecoin bank charters are redrawing the perimeter around the business of banking” said Tokenization Insight Founder, Harvey Li.