> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://stablecoininsider.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Who Is Building APAC’s Stablecoin Economy: Trade Settlement, Cards, Merchant Acceptance, Treasury, and Remittances Mapped by Operator - URL: https://stablecoininsider.org/who-is-building-apacs-stablecoin-economy/ - Published: 2026-10-13T07:25:06.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-13T07:25:06.000Z - Description: Meet the operators building Asia’s stablecoin stack in 2026: Capital Layer, Reap, Triple-A, STABO, and Movantis, mapped by use case from trade settlement to remittances. - Author: Milos Djukanovic - Tags: Analysis, Money Moves East: The Stablecoin Corridors in Asia in 2026, Capital Layer, Reap, Movantis, STABO, Triple-A > Meet the operators building Asia’s stablecoin stack in 2026, mapped by use case from trade settlement to remittances. Kraken’s parent company agreed in May 2026 to pay up to $600 million for a Hong Kong stablecoin card issuer that nearly tripled its revenue in 2025\. It was Payward’s first infrastructure deal in Asia and its third-largest acquisition ever, and the target was not an exchange or a token. It was plumbing. Stablecoin Insider tracks who is building the infrastructure behind stablecoin adoption, and in Asia-Pacific the stack has segmented faster than anywhere else: distinct operators now own distinct layers, each anchored to a use case rather than a token. The region’s licensing wave explains why. When issuance is reserved for banks and bank-backed consortia, the commercial opportunity moves to the layers around issuance: connecting banks to on-chain settlement, turning stablecoin treasury into card spend, accepting stablecoins at checkout without touching crypto, managing collections and treasury, and routing remittances across hybrid rails. This article maps the operators building APAC’s stablecoin economy in 2026, drawing on the [**Money Moves East: The Stablecoin Corridors in Asia in 2026 report**](https://stablecoininsider.org/new-report-money-moves-east-the-stablecoin-corridors-in-asia-in-2026/) and the operator research behind it: five use cases, one builder per layer, and the data each one contributed on what adoption actually looks like. ### Key Takeaways - Payward, Kraken’s parent, agreed to acquire Reap for up to $600 million in May 2026 after Reap nearly tripled revenue and volumes in 2025. - Capital Layer demonstrated a yen-stablecoin payment settled inside Taiwanese bank O-Bank’s existing controls in July 2026 and has since partnered with Green Monster (TSE: 157A) and Stark Technology (TWSE: 2480). - Triple-A’s APAC merchants see 15–20% of total processed volume through stablecoin checkout and have saved more than $1.5 million in chargeback costs. - STABO’s Hong Kong TCSP structure and US MSB registration anchor a treasury suite spanning collections, payments, and, over time, financing and investment. - Movantis joined the Circle Payments Network in April 2026 and is entering APAC through USDC settlement into the Philippines, India, and Indonesia. [![Who Is Building APAC’s Stablecoin Economy](https://storage.ghost.io/c/73/6a/736af0e4-2274-4543-a329-2952b2b52abc/content/images/2026/10/image-10.png)](https://stablecoininsider.org/new-report-money-moves-east-the-stablecoin-corridors-in-asia-in-2026/) ## Why APAC’s Stablecoin Stack Is Use-Case Led B2B payments accounted for about $226 billion of the $390 billion in genuine stablecoin payments recorded globally in 2025, roughly 60%, having grown 733% year on year, according to McKinsey and Artemis Analytics. Asia originated about $245 billion of the total. That is supply-chain settlement, supplier payments, and treasury liquidity, not retail speculation. > *When the volume is institutional, the winners are whoever makes stablecoins usable inside institutions.* The a16z report *The New Stack for Global Finance: Stablecoins Edition* names the structural problem: the stablecoin stack was built almost entirely outside traditional banking and is architecturally incompatible with the legacy core systems most banks run. Integrating the two requires a dedicated translation layer, a category a16z calls “bank connectivity.” That framing explains APAC’s map. One operator sits between banks and on-chain settlement. One turns stablecoin balances into card spend. One accepts stablecoins at checkout and settles merchants in fiat. One runs collections and treasury. One routes remittances across fiat and stablecoin rails under a single compliance standard. Together they cover the five use cases the Money Moves East report identifies as the region’s demand engines. --- ## Trade Settlement: Capital Layer and the Bank Connectivity Layer Most corridor infrastructure answers how value moves: issuance, rails, on-ramps. [**Capital Layer**](https://capitallayer.com/), the Taipei-based Digital Asset Orchestration Layer, answers how institutions govern it. Its position is that Asia’s slot in a16z’s bank-connectivity category remains unfilled, and that is the slot it is building for. According to research by Capital Layer, its Digital Asset Stacks platform synchronises custody, compliance screening, and settlement coordination so a bank operates the entire stablecoin flow inside systems its risk and audit teams already govern, while the corporate customer on the receiving end simply sees funds arrive in an ordinary account. At the Stablecoin Summit in Taipei on 8 July 2026, Taiwan’s first public stablecoin event after passage of the Virtual Asset Service Act, Capital Layer and Taiwanese bank O-Bank (2897-TW) demonstrated a yen-stablecoin payment from a Japanese institution being received by O-Bank and settled to fiat inside the bank’s existing risk and compliance controls, with an audit-ready record. The scenario modelled JPYSC ahead of its launch. Capital Layer has since announced a partnership with Tokyo-listed Green Monster Inc. (TSE: 157A) to build institutional stablecoin settlement across Japan and Taiwan, and a distribution partnership with Stark Technology (TWSE: 2480), Taiwan’s largest domestic system integrator. The before-and-after Capital Layer describes for a Taiwan–Japan–Korea B2B payment, cited as industry aggregates: two to five days of correspondent settlement with fees at every hop and no visibility in transit, replaced by same-day settlement, single-step FX, and reconciliation produced automatically as part of settlement. > “The advantage in Asia’s regulated stablecoin markets won’t go to whoever settles fastest. It will go to institutions that can run these flows through their own audit and control systems, localized to their regulators, governed inside their existing environment, and built to scale from one corridor to many. That foundation, not speed, is the starting point.” > — **Justin Wang, CEO, Capital Layer** --- ## Corporate Payments: Reap and the Stablecoin-Funded Card Card issuing is where stablecoin infrastructure found its first real-world use case at scale in Asia, and [**Reap**](https://reap.global/) is the operator that proved it. The Hong Kong company holds Visa Principal Issuer membership in both Hong Kong and Mexico, nearly tripled revenue and volumes in 2025, and agreed in May 2026 to be acquired by Payward for up to $600 million in cash and stock, continuing as a standalone platform under its current leadership after closing in the second half of 2026. According to research by Reap, its APAC card base splits into two adoption curves. Crypto-native and digital-first businesses ramp fast and become high-frequency users early, because the card solves a problem they already had: turning stablecoin treasury into everyday spend without first routing it through a bank account. Usage skews toward frequent, smaller transactions such as subscriptions, cloud infrastructure, and vendor payments, with digital-native businesses running up to roughly 500 transactions per card each year but deploying more cards. Traditional SMEs and enterprises adopt differently. The stablecoin funding mechanism is largely invisible to them; finance teams care about settlement speed and FX savings, not the rail underneath. Adoption starts with cross-border supplier payments or T&E for regional teams, the card sits alongside existing corporate card programmes rather than replacing them, and each card averages more than 900 transactions a year with concentrated operational spend running through a small set of cards. > “Card issuing is where that infrastructure found its first real-world use case at scale. Before stablecoins were being discussed as infrastructure, card issuing was already proving the model, powering B2B payments that needed to move fast and across borders without the friction of traditional rails. That gave stablecoins their earliest validation, not as a speculative asset, but as the plumbing behind real commercial transactions.” > — **Daren Guo, Co-Founder, Reap** Reap’s view of what comes next is agentic. According to research by Reap, stablecoins are emerging as a preferred infrastructure layer for AI agents handling procurement, vendor payments, and treasury operations, because an agent transacting on someone’s behalf needs rails that are programmable by default, enforce spend limits, verify counterparties, and settle instantly without a human in the loop for every step. [![Who Is Building APAC’s Stablecoin Economy](https://storage.ghost.io/c/73/6a/736af0e4-2274-4543-a329-2952b2b52abc/content/images/2026/10/image-11.png)](https://stablecoininsider.org/new-report-money-moves-east-the-stablecoin-corridors-in-asia-in-2026/) ## Merchant Acceptance: Triple-A and Checkout Without Custody [**Triple-A**](https://www.triple-a.io/) is a payment institution licensed in the United States, Europe, and Singapore, serving more than 1,000 enterprise customers, and it is the operator with the clearest corridor-level merchant data in the region. According to research by Triple-A, its APAC merchants see on average 15–20% of the total volumes they process come through stablecoin checkout. The strongest use cases are travel, e-commerce and digital commerce, gaming and digital services, and financial platforms, particularly businesses with high volumes of cross-border transactions. Adoption is extending beyond checkout into wallet top-ups, global payouts, and integrated acceptance-and-payout solutions for platforms and marketplaces. Across Triple-A’s broader merchant base, clients have achieved up to 70% lower payment costs while eliminating card-style chargebacks, and in APAC its partner merchants have saved more than US$1.5 million in chargeback costs. Within its APAC checkout activity, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand are currently the strongest markets, and the company estimates roughly 327 million people in Asia hold or use digital currencies, about half the global total. In 2026 Triple-A integrated with the Circle Payments Network for cross-border settlement, added Mastercard Move to strengthen its cross-border payment infrastructure, embedded its acceptance stack into the Yuno orchestration platform, and signed an MOU with Korea’s Hecto Financial. > “APAC has moved beyond simply being a high-adoption digital currency market. We are now seeing stablecoins used as real cross-border payment infrastructure. Triple-A’s APAC-origin flows to Europe grew 205% in 2025, while flows from APAC to MENA rose 604%, with strong growth continuing across key corridors in 2026.” > — **Eric Barbier, CEO, Triple-A** [Download the Full Report](https://stablecoininsider.org/new-report-money-moves-east-the-stablecoin-corridors-in-asia-in-2026/) ## Enterprise Treasury: STABO and the Full Capital Lifecycle [**STABO**](https://www.stabo.io/en) is building a global stablecoin treasury platform for businesses: one place to manage stablecoin and fiat across collections, payments, capital deployment, financing, and investment. Its reading of the merchant market is the most contrarian in the report. According to research by STABO, the most important adoption pattern among its APAC-facing clients is not a large-scale migration of existing fiat or card volume into stablecoins. The value is that a merchant can now accept payment from customers or markets where card acceptance, banking access, or cross-border settlement was previously difficult. The main benefit is expanding the addressable market and generating incremental revenue, not optimising the cost of an existing flow. > *Chargeback reduction is a secondary benefit. Stablecoins do not eliminate payment risk; they change its nature.* Stablecoin payments remove the card-scheme chargeback mechanism but introduce risks around wallet provenance and potentially illicit-source funds, which is why STABO’s collection infrastructure includes on-chain KYT, wallet screening, transaction monitoring, and procedures for handling or returning payments. The licensing footprint is built for a multi-market treasury product rather than a single licence. STABO’s Hong Kong TCSP structure supports trust and asset-segregation arrangements through STABO Trust, its US MSB registration establishes the federal BSA/AML framework for money transmission involving fiat and convertible virtual currencies, and its Canadian MSB registration is in progress. Financing activities in Hong Kong may require money-lending permissions, and investment and virtual-asset activities increasingly sit within the SFC’s perimeter, which STABO is following closely as those regimes develop. > “STABO is addressing one of the most important barriers to digital asset adoption: transforming on-chain instruments into trusted infrastructure for real business payments. As a professional and valued partner, STABO pairs strong execution with a disciplined approach to regulatory compliance and banking infrastructure built into its foundation.” > — **Zihang Ding, Senior Head of Operations, Green Link Digital Bank** > “Stablecoins in B2B are past the proof-of-concept stage. The next phase is not about creating more protocols, but making regulated digital money genuinely useful to businesses and recognised as part of mainstream financial infrastructure. STABO is tackling the integration challenge: connecting on-chain settlement with banking, payments, liquidity and treasury workflows.” > — **Arnoud Star Busmann, Advisor to STABO and former CEO of a MiCAR-regulated stablecoin issuer** --- ## Remittances: Movantis and the Hybrid-Rail Model [**Movantis**](https://www.movantis.com/) is the corridor counterpart on the map: a regulated network built over two decades for the US–LatAm corridor, with more than 60 licences across the Americas, 90,000+ payout locations, and 50+ money transfer operator relationships, facilitating the movement of more than $60 billion annually. It joined the Circle Payments Network on 13 April 2026, adding USDC settlement to its multi-rail infrastructure. According to research by Movantis, it does not yet generate material volume on APAC corridors through stablecoin rails; current flows into APAC settle through fiat rails and its MTO network. Its APAC entry is planned predominantly through USDC settlement into the Philippines, India, Indonesia, and Africa, using the hybrid model it operates in Latin America: fiat and stablecoin rails working together, with the optimal path chosen per transaction. In markets where local partners accept USDC settlement, that compresses the time to first transaction without the pre-funding requirements that make traditional expansion capital-intensive. Movantis argues that the structural conditions that made stablecoins indispensable in Latin America, currency volatility, fragmented cross-border rails, expensive correspondent banking, and demand for dollar-denominated value, exist in the Philippines, India, and Indonesia at a different stage, and that adoption driven by necessity is faster and more durable than adoption driven by efficiency optimisation in Europe. > “Through 2027, stablecoins will complement traditional rails in every corridor we enter, including APAC. The institutions that win won’t pick a side. They’ll route each transaction through whichever rail is optimal, under one compliance standard. We built that model in LatAm. That’s what we’re taking to Asia.” > — **Gustavo Ruiz, Chairman & CEO, Movantis** [![Who Is Building APAC’s Stablecoin Economy](https://storage.ghost.io/c/73/6a/736af0e4-2274-4543-a329-2952b2b52abc/content/images/2026/10/image-12.png)](https://stablecoininsider.org/new-report-money-moves-east-the-stablecoin-corridors-in-asia-in-2026/) ## The Ecosystem Map at a Glance | Layer | Use case | Operator | Regulatory footprint | | ---------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- | | Bank connectivity and settlement orchestration | Trade settlement, institutional treasury (TW/JP/KR) | Capital Layer | Bank-facing; Taiwan VASA regime | | Stablecoin-native cards and corporate spend | Corporate payments, T&E, supplier payments, agentic commerce | Reap | Visa Principal Issuer in Hong Kong and Mexico | | Merchant acceptance and checkout | Cross-border e-commerce, travel, gaming | Triple-A | Payment institution licences in US, EU, Singapore | | Treasury and collections platform | B2B collections, payments, capital deployment | STABO | Hong Kong TCSP, US MSB; Canada MSB in progress | | Multi-rail remittance and payout | Remittances, MTO settlement | Movantis | 60+ licences across the Americas; Circle Payments Network member | | HKD issuance | Institutional settlement, treasury | Anchorpoint (HKDAP), HSBC | HKMA licensed | | JPY issuance | Retail (JPYC), institutional (JPYSC), megabank B2B | JPYC Inc., SBI Shinsei Trust Bank, MUFG/SMBC/Mizuho | Japan PSA Types II and III | --- ## The Four Sectors Most in Need of Stablecoins ### **Supply chains and trade settlement** The killer app. In APAC’s hardware corridors a single shipment can carry seven-figure invoices, and the working capital locked in transit for days is the heavier cost, according to research by Capital Layer. Taiwan’s export-driven enterprises already face requests from counterparties to transact in stablecoins; until the Virtual Asset Service Act, their banks had no framework to receive those flows. ### **Remittances** The demand is proven; conversion is a licensing and cash-out problem. According to research by Movantis, the operators that win will be those with regulated settlement on both ends of a corridor and a hybrid routing model that uses stablecoins where they are optimal and fiat where they are not. ### **Cross-border e-commerce and digital commerce** Travel, gaming, and e-commerce are natural fits because they serve international customers and benefit from faster settlement, lower costs, and an additional payment method for customers who already hold stablecoins, according to research by Triple-A. The strongest commercial case, according to STABO, is reaching customers and corridors that were previously impossible to monetise. ### **Corporate treasury and FX optimisation** Liquidity management is the leading benefit cited by Asian institutions adopting stablecoins, at 41%, against 25% citing lower fees, according to Fireblocks. According to research by Movantis, programmable wallets let treasury teams schedule and automate transactions across time zones without manual intervention, a meaningful advantage when a US team is asleep while APAC markets are open. --- ## The Builder Outlook: 2026–2027 Four vectors dominate: 1. Consolidation around licensed operators: The Payward–Reap deal, SBI’s investments in Startale and JPYSC, and bank-led coin issuance all point to capital concentrating in operators with regulated standing. 2. Bank connectivity becomes the contested layer: With 18 to 20 of Taiwan’s 38 banks already applying for stablecoin services licences, the question moves from whether banks participate to who operates the flows inside their systems. 3. Incremental revenue outranks cost savings in merchant adoption. STABO’s and Triple-A’s data converge: new corridors first, chargeback economics second. 4. Agentic payments open a new category: According to research by Reap, the question is not whether agentic payments end up on stablecoin rails but how quickly the tooling around identity, compliance, and control catches up. [**The Money Moves East report**](https://stablecoininsider.org/new-report-money-moves-east-the-stablecoin-corridors-in-asia-in-2026/) states the common thread: the operators winning in APAC are not replacing fiat rails, they are adding a second rail and routing each transaction through whichever is optimal under one compliance standard. [![Who Is Building APAC’s Stablecoin Economy](https://storage.ghost.io/c/73/6a/736af0e4-2274-4543-a329-2952b2b52abc/content/images/2026/10/image-13.png)](https://stablecoininsider.org/new-report-money-moves-east-the-stablecoin-corridors-in-asia-in-2026/) ## Conclusion Stablecoin Insider covers the data behind stablecoin adoption, and in Asia-Pacific the builders have sorted themselves by use case. - Capital Layer connects banks to on-chain settlement in the Taiwan–Japan–Korea trade corridor. - Reap turns stablecoin treasury into corporate card spend and is being acquired for up to $600 million. - Triple-A runs merchant acceptance with 15–20% of APAC merchant volume now on stablecoin checkout. - STABO manages collections and treasury under a Hong Kong trust structure. - Movantis is bringing a hybrid fiat-plus-stablecoin remittance model from Latin America to the Philippines, India, and Indonesia. All five point to the same conclusion: in a region where issuance is reserved for banks, the commercial opportunity is in making regulated stablecoins usable inside the systems businesses already run. The full ecosystem map, the use-case deep-dives, and the sector analysis are in the Money Moves East: The Stablecoin Corridors in Asia in 2026 report; if you want the complete dataset behind these figures or want to discuss how they apply to your business, get in touch with our team. ***Read Next:*** - [**APAC Stablecoin Regulation 2026: Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan’s Licensed Regimes Explained**](#) - [**Stablecoin Corridors in Asia 2026: Market Size, Settlement Volume, and the Trade and Remittance Flows Driving Adoption**](#) - [**New Report: Money Moves East – The Stablecoin Corridors in Asia in 2026**](https://stablecoininsider.org/new-report-money-moves-east-the-stablecoin-corridors-in-asia-in-2026/) --- ## FAQs: ### **1\. Who are the main stablecoin infrastructure companies in Asia in 2026?** The main stablecoin infrastructure companies in Asia in 2026 covered in the Money Moves East report are Capital Layer for bank connectivity and trade settlement, Reap for stablecoin-funded corporate cards, Triple-A for merchant acceptance, STABO for treasury and collections, and Movantis for multi-rail remittances, alongside licensed issuers Anchorpoint and HSBC in Hong Kong and JPYC, SBI Shinsei Trust Bank, and the MUFG, Mizuho, and SMBC council in Japan. ### **2\. Why is Kraken’s parent company acquiring Reap?** Kraken’s parent company Payward is acquiring Reap for up to $600 million in cash and stock because Reap built the stablecoin-funded corporate card layer in Asia, holds Visa Principal Issuer membership in Hong Kong and Mexico, and nearly tripled revenue and volumes in 2025, making it Payward’s first infrastructure deal in Asia and third-largest acquisition overall. ### **3\. What is the bank connectivity layer in stablecoin infrastructure?** The bank connectivity layer in stablecoin infrastructure is the category a16z’s *The New Stack for Global Finance: Stablecoins Edition* identifies as the translation layer between on-chain stablecoin settlement and banks’ legacy core systems, which Capital Layer is building for Asia through its Digital Asset Stacks platform, demonstrated with Taiwanese bank O-Bank in July 2026. ### **4\. Do stablecoin payments reduce chargebacks for merchants in Asia?** Stablecoin payments reduce chargebacks for merchants in Asia by removing the card-scheme chargeback mechanism, with Triple-A reporting more than $1.5 million in chargeback savings among its APAC partner merchants, but STABO’s research shows chargeback reduction is a secondary benefit and that stablecoins introduce new risks around wallet provenance that require on-chain KYT and wallet screening. ### **5\. How are stablecoins used for remittances into Asia?** Stablecoins are used for remittances into Asia on the institutional interbank leg, where operators such as Movantis route transactions through USDC settlement via the Circle Payments Network to reach the Philippines, India, and Indonesia without pre-funding and outside banking hours, while the last mile into a local account or cash point continues to run on regulated local rails. --- ***Disclaimer:*** This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or tax advice; no material herein should be interpreted as a recommendation, endorsement, or solicitation to buy or sell any financial instrument, and readers should conduct their own independent research or consult a qualified professional.