Vantage Bank continues to develop its stablecoin infrastructure and has identified international payments as a use for the tech. 

“We feel like this is going to be a huge, monumental change in the way that we’re able to move money, particularly with international clients,” Jeff Sinnott, president and chief executive officer, said May 21 during the 2025 American Banker Stablecoin webinar.

The $4.3 billion, San Antonio-based bank has been working with digital asset service provider Custodia Bank since 2024 to develop its stablecoin infrastructure. In a proof of concept last year, they found that the two best uses were moving money domestically between accounts and moving money across borders, Sinnott said. 

Traditional stablecoin cross-border payments that used to take four or five days to complete now take a few minutes, he said. 

“We really see it as another rail, just like we use today in the payment space,” Sinnott said. “It follows all of the rules of traditional finance like regulatory oversight and transaction monitoring.”  

Stablecoins have a start and end point for payments and follow the same settlement process as traditional payment rails, ensuring transaction security, he added. 

The bank is using USDC stablecoins, which function like traditional currency since their value is pegged to the U.S. dollar, Sinnott said.  

“You could have your account at the bank with stablecoin in it, and then you could have your account right next to it with fiat dollars in it,” he said. 

Why use blockchain and stablecoins? 

With a more crypto-friendly presidential administration, financial institutions will start experimenting with stablecoins, Eli Cohen, general counsel at asset tokenization service provider Centrifuge, told Bank Automation News. 

“Banks and payments companies are already experimenting with this, and some have made great headway,” Cohen said. “Cross-border payments, equity asset settlements and internal liquidity management are among the top use cases as of now.” 

These FIs are experimenting with stablecoins: 

• JPMorgan; 

• Mastercard; 

• PayPal; 

• Stripe; and 

• Visa. 

Using blockchain and stablecoins, especially for cross-border payments, as “a modern payment rail” gives banks added “accessibility and reach,”, Sinnott said. 

“The reach can be around the world, between bank-to-bank and even bank-to-underbanked,” he said. 

It also allows FIs to innovate with payments via smart contract — which determine how money moves — and the triggers required to initiate the payment, Sinnott said. 

Transaction costs can be reduced by limiting the number of middlemen in the transaction, referred to as “lack of hops.”  

“You don’t have somebody taking a bite of the apple every time it’s bouncing between different third parties” to complete a payment, Sinnott said